New Spiritualities and the Cultures of Well-being (Religion, Spirituality and Health: A Social Scientific Approach, 6) 3031062620, 9783031062629

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Religion, Spirituality and Health: A Social Scientific Approach

Géraldine Mossière Editor

New Spiritualities and the Cultures of Well-being

Religion, Spirituality and Health: A Social Scientific Approach Volume 6

Series Editors Alphia Possamai-Inesedy, School of Social Sciences and Psych University of Western Sydney, Penrith, NSW, Australia Kevin J. Flannelly, Center for Psychosocial Research, Massapequa, NY, USA Editorial Board Members Amy Ai, Florida State University, Tallahassee, FL, USA Maureen Benjamins, Sinai Urban Health Institute, Chicago, IL, USA Alex Bierman, University of Calgary, Calgary, AB, Canada Matt Bradshaw, Baylor University, Waco, TX, USA Alexander Broom, University of Queensland, Brisbane, Australia George Fitchett, Rush University, Chicago, IL, USA Paul Heelas, Lancaster University, Bailrigg, UK Terrence Hill, University of Arizona, Tucson, USA Ellen Idler, Emory University, Druid Hills, USA Harold Koenig, Duke University, Durham, USA Neal Krause, University of Michigan, Ann Arbor, MI, USA Jeff Levin, Baylor University, Waco, TX, USA Pranee Liamputtong, Latrobe University, Melbourne, Australia Keith Meador, Vanderbilt University, Nashville, USA Doug Oman, University of California-Berkeley, Oakland, USA Kenneth Pargament, Bowling Green State University, Bowling Green, OH, USA Crystal Park, University of Connecticut, Storrs, USA Jenny Trinitapoli, Pennsylvania State University, State College, USA

The relationship between religious/spiritual belief or behaviour and health behaviour has been explored over several decades and across various disciplines. Religious variables have consistently been found to have a direct relationship to physical and mental health. At the same time  - research has also indicated potential societal tensions that can exist between religion and health – we have seen this in relation to family planning, HIV/AIDS, and reproduction. This book series uncovers the impact of religion on individual health behaviors and outcomes, as well as the influence of religion on health practices at the community level. It consists of volumes that are based on multi-methodological approaches, provide quantitative and qualitative forms of analysis, and advance the understanding of the intersection between religion and health beyond the correlation of religious belief and health outcomes. Building on earlier research, the series explores the direct relationship between religious variables and physical and mental health, as well as the potential societal tensions that have been shown to exist between religion and health  – for example in relation to family planning, HIV/ AIDS, and reproduction. Spoken values are often shared within religious communities; however, religious influence can at times be extended outside of the community in instances of service provisions such as hospital ownership, various research active think tanks, political action, and the development of community mores.

Géraldine Mossière Editor

New Spiritualities and the Cultures of Well-being

Editor Géraldine Mossière Institut d’études religieuses Université de Montréal Montréal, QC, Canada

ISSN 2627-6011     ISSN 2627-602X (electronic) Religion, Spirituality and Health: A Social Scientific Approach ISBN 978-3-031-06262-9    ISBN 978-3-031-06263-6 (eBook) https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-06263-6 © The Editor(s) (if applicable) and The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2022 , corrected publication 2022 This work is subject to copyright. All rights are solely and exclusively licensed by the Publisher, whether the whole or part of the material is concerned, specifically the rights of translation, reprinting, reuse of illustrations, recitation, broadcasting, reproduction on microfilms or in any other physical way, and transmission or information storage and retrieval, electronic adaptation, computer software, or by similar or dissimilar methodology now known or hereafter developed. The use of general descriptive names, registered names, trademarks, service marks, etc. in this publication does not imply, even in the absence of a specific statement, that such names are exempt from the relevant protective laws and regulations and therefore free for general use. The publisher, the authors, and the editors are safe to assume that the advice and information in this book are believed to be true and accurate at the date of publication. Neither the publisher nor the authors or the editors give a warranty, expressed or implied, with respect to the material contained herein or for any errors or omissions that may have been made. The publisher remains neutral with regard to jurisdictional claims in published maps and institutional affiliations. This Springer imprint is published by the registered company Springer Nature Switzerland AG The registered company address is: Gewerbestrasse 11, 6330 Cham, Switzerland

Contents

 Introduction: Spirituality, Well-Being and the Neoliberal Canopy������������    1 Géraldine Mossière  How Can a Subject Be More Than Himself? Spiritual Subjectivities and Well-­Being in Portuguese Spiritism and the New Spiritualities����������   15 Christophe Pons  Spirituality, Self-Help, and Subjective Wellbeing Culture��������������������������   35 Galen Watts  Religious Conversions and New Spiritual Economies����������������������������������   51 Géraldine Mossière Smudging, Yoga and Ethical Veganism: Exploring the Boundaries of Religious and Spiritual Practice in Law����������������������������������������������������   67 Lori G. Beaman and Lauren Strumos Economic Reforms and Spiritual Transformations? Iran from the 1990s������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������   83 Behnaz Khosravi When Spirituality Becomes Spiritual Labour: Workplace Mindfulness as a Practice of Well-Being and Productivity��������������������������   99 Mira Karjalainen The Entanglement of Spirituality, Wellbeing and ‘Spiritual Economy’ in Brazil: The Shift from ‘Living Well Together’ to ‘Leading a Good Life’��������������������������������  117 Bettina E. Schmidt Wellness in the Wild: Reverential Naturalism in the Pacific Northwest����������������������������������������������������������������������������������  135 Paul Bramadat

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Nature Connection as Spirituality, Wellbeing Practice, and Subjective Activism����������������������������������������������������������������������������������  153 Henrik Ohlsson  Gaga, Be Well? Well-Being as Intersectional Dispositif Do in the Neo-­spiritual Israeli Movement Practice Gaga����������������������������������  169 Lina Aschenbrenner and Anne Koch Correction to: New Spiritualities and the Cultures of Well-being. . . . . . .   C1

The original version of this book was revised: The book was inadvertently published with a typo error in the title which has been corrected now. The correction to this book is available at https:// doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-06263-6_12

Introduction: Spirituality, Well-Being and the Neoliberal Canopy Géraldine Mossière

Abstract  The emergence of new spiritualities has challenged classical methods for studying religious behaviors, often leading scholars to focus on spiritual discourses and narratives. The sociologist Nancy Ammerman recently suggested approaching spirituality as a (lived) practice, while other authors have focused on the conditions of emergence for new spiritualities, including new authorities (Wood, 2007). The chapters and case studies in this book are intended to become part of this broader conversation as they address many dimensions of the dynamics between the contemporary regimes of spirituality and the thriving cultures of well-being as they unfold under the neoliberal canopy. Keywords  Spirituality · Well-being · Neoliberalism · Healing · Morality · Normativity · Ethics · Subjectivity The emergence of new spiritualities has challenged classical methods for studying religious behaviors, often leading scholars to focus on spiritual discourses and narratives. The sociologist Nancy Ammerman recently suggested approaching spirituality as a (lived) practice, while other authors have focused on the conditions of emergence for new spiritualities, including new authorities (Wood, 2007). The chapters and case studies in this book are intended to become part of this broader conversation as they address many dimensions of the dynamics between the contemporary regimes of spirituality and the thriving cultures of well-being as they unfold under the neoliberal canopy.

The original version of this chapter was revised: There is a typo error in the word that read “Spiritualties” whereas it should be “Spiritualities” and the same has been corrected now. The correction to this chapter is available at https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-06263-6_12 G. Mossière (*) Institut d’études religieuses, Université de Montréal, Montréal, QC, Canada e-mail: [email protected] © The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2022, corrected publication 2022 G. Mossière (ed.), New Spiritualities and the Cultures of Well-being, Religion, Spirituality and Health: A Social Scientific Approach 6, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-06263-6_1

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1 Neoliberalism and Religion Neoliberalism has attracted many critics, yet it remains the most influential paradigm and the main principle of the contemporary global order. Taking its roots in classical liberalism inherited from seventeenth-century English philosopher John Locke and the thought of the French Enlightenment, neoliberalism draws on the idea of the moral primacy of the individual as the bearer of fundamental rights, as well as on the values of liberty, autonomy, limited government and equality. In some contexts, neoliberalism has been also been identified with rationalism, progress and science. Economist Friedrich A.  Hayek’s (1960) publication The Constitution of Liberty articulated the main points of neoliberalism, namely the prevalence of individual freedom and the reduction of the power of the state to the rule of the law. As an economic doctrine, neoliberalism advocates for the primacy of the market and free competition, which involves the deregulation of economic activity, the privatization of resources, and the limitation of welfare support for the poorest segments of the population (Harvey, 2007). Because it considers the state as a potential threat to individual liberty, critics argue that neoliberalism constrains its social role at the expense of social justice (Rawls, 2001). Other critics contend that the neoliberal focus on economic liberty and rationality has turned into a form of fundamentalism in which the market forces and principles penetrate and govern all areas of social life (Brown, 2015; Whyte, 2019), thereby forming a new economic canopy for public and private lives and relationships. Researchers have widely documented how the neoliberalization process impacts religious life, such as in the use of marketing techniques to attract members or to shape religious spaces (Martikainen, 2006; Martikainen & Gauthier, 2016). The new centrality of the individual and individuality in social and religious life has also significantly changed the role and nature of religious authority. Many religious organizations have redrafted their management, leadership and recruitment strategies to achieve greater efficiency and appeal (García Ruiz & Michel, 2012), while also shifting ritual and liturgy from traditional styles of teaching and worship to individualized and experience-centered formats (Fath, 2008; Obadia, 2013). The rising success of spiritual activities like mindfulness and yoga is heavily reliant on the commodification and branding of these practices (Jain, 2015). Many of them aim at shaping their practitioners for increased efficiency and productivity (Elliott & Lemert, 2009). Conversely, religious values continue to impact the evolution of societies as part of an ethical, post-secular mode (Habermas, 2008). There is a mutual influence between religion and economic systems that is formulated in Max Weber’s observations about the impact of Calvinist ethics and the theology of predestination on the emergence of capitalism (Weber, 1989 [1904]). Weber exemplified this notion in his depiction of churches as purveyors of “salvation goods” (Stolz, 2008). Building on this perspective, rational choice theory has conceptualized religious behaviors as responses to the religious needs of social agents, as well as through the selection of religious resources that are increasingly disembedded from their traditions of origin and offered ad hoc to individuals. This

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view oversimplifies the complex configurations of religious life today, but it does the useful job of inserting the semantic field-specific of market theory into social thought on religion. As a result, we encounter labels like “spiritual market”, “religious goods”, and “religious entrepreneurs”. In addition to its effects on social life, neoliberalism has deregulated religious experiences (Dardot & Laval, 2010; Lemke, 2001) by democratizing education and professionalization and by promoting the autonomy and individual responsibility of agents. As individuals are tasked with developing their “human capital” through education, experience and emotional competence, they are also urged to produce their own happiness and to customize religious resources, often based on the kind of well-being such resources might foster (Meintel & Mossière, 2011). Critics have pointed out that this neoliberal dynamic transfers the duty of collective support to individuals (García Ruiz & Michel, 2012; Bergeaud-Blackler, 2017). Considering this power structure as a backdrop of the contemporary age, the contributions in this volume approach neoliberalism as a set of social practices and narratives that are navigated by individuals and groups, and that shape their experiences of the world. Drawing on Foucault and his followers (Rudnyckyj, 2009), we are interested in the practical actions through which neoliberalism unfolds, and especially those actions that are related to the cultures of well-being, that broadly encompass an experience of health, happiness, harmony, and socially connectedness, a perception of personal fulfillment and self-care as well as a sense of meaning and hope in life. Cultures of well-being are now a widespread aspect of popular culture, but, except Illouz (2008)’ s sociological work, they have thus far received little attention in published anthropological research. In this volume, we explore some of the many facets of this neoliberal impetus for developing individual well-being and discuss how it becomes articulated through religious rituals, practices, beliefs, and values that are today assembled under the umbrella term of the “spiritual”.

2 Spirituality and Social Sciences Historically, religions have played a central role in individuals’ projects of and processes for working on the self. For example, Christian views of conversion as a “change of heart” exemplify the possibility that religious practices and narratives might allow the neoliberal individual to shape and change their life experience in ways that are deemed “spiritual” rather than religious. In this volume, the term “subject” will be used as an alternative to the term “individual”, in reference to the philosophical definition of the word and the subjective, conscious and reflexive experiences of human beings.1 The current enthusiasm for spirituality and the variety of is expressions must be understood in light of the wave of secularization that

 The term also raises issues of autonomy and the nature of the self, and some of the contributions in this volume address the problem of the deconstruction of the very notion of “subject”. 1

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has spread across contemporary societies. The spread of this phenomenon assigns religious life to the private and subjective realms, thereby posing a significant challenge to institutional religious authorities. This process gained strength through the attention under neoliberalism to the reflexivity and self-realization of the individual. Curiously, the intersection of changing Christian views and the secularization process was facilitated by and productively channeled through various domains of spirituality that had already been incubating within most institutional religions, such as Christian ascetism, Islamic Sufism, Jewish kabbalah, and Hindu sadhu path. The understanding of a dissociation between religion and spirituality glosses over the historical relationship that has long existed between mainstream and mystic experiences, as well as the possibility that such experiences might overlap rather than exist as mutually exclusive visions of religious life and practice. Therefore, the shift from religion to spirituality stems as much from a specific economic and political moment as it does from the individual, subjective appropriation of the historical design of institutional religions. The contributors in this volume explore how this understanding of spirituality unfolds in contemporary practices that are geared toward the improvement of individual well-being through people’s own intentionality and the regulation of their environment. While the concept of spirituality has had many uses and interpretations, we define it here with specific anthropological and sociological terms. Georg Simmel’s (1905, 1997 [1911]) perspective of spirituality as the core of the human existence is particularly relevant to our attempt to grasp how spirituality unfolds in contemporary individuals’ everyday lives. Simmel, a German sociologist working in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, anticipated the impact of modernity and urbanization on social ties and religious life. He shifted his research, which had examined clerical religions and the relationship of believers to God, to focus on the modern religious forms that take an individual’s relationship to the world as a way of being or a way of becoming. This perspective draws on a vitalist anthropological view of the subject, whose religiosity constitutes a dynamic part of a life freed from the concern for transcendence. It follows that, for Simmel, it is the affective, cognitive or psychological categories of the subject that shape their relation to the world, and not the other way around. According to French scholar Daniel Vidal (2017), Simmel views spirituality as the ways in which individuals account for the existential conditions of human life, including their vulnerability, quest for meaning, and survival. In other words, spirituality, as the unique experience of human beings, appears as the ultimate expression of an individual’s vitality. Therefore, transcendence is only experienced as an individual surpasses himself or herself through his or her own potential for action. Moreover, the philosopher Jankelevitch (1925) contends that this spiritual tension aims at a non-static experience, which improves subjective life in all its dimensions (ie., intellectual, moral, aesthetic or religious). Yet, this existential spirituality is based on human beings’ spontaneous and subjective relationships to things, to others, and to the world. Thus, spirituality provides the opportunity to unite the self in a creative and unique way at a time when the modern conditions of living tend to fragment and dissolve one’s worldly normative references and social roles (Hervieu-Léger & Willaime, 2001).

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Simmel’s idea that spirituality is anchored to the immanent realm in which it manifests likely inspired contemporary scholars such as Nancy Ammerman, who conceptualized spirituality as a dimension of lived religion (2013). As part of a large-scale study conducted in Great Britain, Heelas and Woodhead (2005) presented religion and spirituality as two domains that framed life in distinct ways, but they did so while observing a shift from the former to the latter. They contrasted religion, as the “life-as” that leads people to behave according to prescribed roles, with spirituality, as the “subjective-life” that causes people to lead their lives according to their own experiences and interactions with others. Both sociologists refer to this as “holistic activities and spiritualities”; they also observed that such practices tends to attract more women than men, and particularly during the second half of their lifespan. Like Simmel, Helaas and Woodhead relate these new trends to the decline of religious traditions, the growth of individual or communal religiosities (small experiential groups), and more broadly, to the subjective turn that featured contemporary societies. In general, social sciences usually associate spirituality with: the primacy of personal experience; a focus on well-being in the immanent world; and a monistic conception of the world in which the natural intermingles with the supernatural, science, religion and popular or esoteric religiosities. Likewise, empirical studies identify quality of life, well-being, health and healing as common concerns in spiritual movements, along with the celebration of a holistic vision of the human being that integrates body, mind and soul into an overall balance. Unlike sociology, anthropology has only recently shown an interest in such a conceptualization of spirituality, which usually engages ethnographic studies conducted among specific groups, and activities that are self-identified as “spiritual”. These might include yoga and meditation groups, and wider movements stemming from the revitalization or introduction of non- or pre-Christian practices from Eastern and South Asia or Indigenous traditions. Although some of these groups and movements are rooted in specific cosmologies that involve their own divine pantheons and representations of an “other-world”, most of them center around practices geared toward the exploration of the self. In the global West, where these practices are appropriated as techniques for personal development, they owe their success to a heritage affinity with Puritan Protestantism (Prades, 2014) and its politics for disciplining the mind and domesticating the body (Rudnyckyj, 2009). The recent appearance of “Christian yoga” is a prime example of this. The allure of these movements extends well beyond Christianity and its offshoots to intermingle with a wide range of traditional religions. This includes the practice of “mindfulness” or vipassana meditation techniques by some Jews (Mautner & Mizrachi 2020; Seeman & Karlin, 2019), or the assemblage of Islamic and New Age practices by some Muslims (Howell, 2013). The transplantation of Eastern spiritual techniques into Western contexts raises the issue of their transferability and transportability (Csordas, 2009) when those spiritualities are rooted in non-dualistic philosophies that might not be attuned to neoliberal individualism. One might ask, for example, how religious resources can be uprooted from their context of origin and

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transplanted to other settings. What symbolic power is lost in the process? What is produced? (Carrette & King, 2004; Scherer & Waistell, 2018; Martin, 2012). This circulation of spiritual resources across social and historical contexts also raises questions about the power relationships involved in the appropriation of non-­ Western traditions. Carrette and King (2004) have reflected on the new styles of colonization that arise as part of these dynamics. Some contributors to this book comment on this point by drawing on studies of spirituality in non-Western contexts like Israel, Brazil, and the Cape Verdean Islands. Interestingly, some religions may also be interpreted as counter-discourses to neoliberalism and its insistence on self-­ improvement. For example, while some Muslims use daily practices like prayer or dietary and garment choices as tools for improving and disciplining the body and the ego, others appropriate Islamic prescriptions as a subversive language for contesting the social impacts of individualism and its impetus for efficiency (Mossière, in press). In this book, we map spirituality within this economic and ethic trajectory, in which the self is governed and conceived as the site of comprehensive personal reflexivity. This work that is carried out on individuals as well as on societies is undertaken with a concern for improving and transcending worldly existence as a contemporary virtue, which paves the way for what I label “neoliberal spirituality”. The contributors to this volume examine the question of whether this realization benefits individuals or society at large by exploring how, specifically in relation to well-being, this new understanding of spirituality calls as much on human creativity as it does on the desire to revisit the conditions of human existence. Indeed, while popular culture has mainly addressed spirituality via its capacity to leverage human capital and happiness, we can also consider its potential as an alternative ideological path.

3 Spiritualities and the Subject The religious resources and practices gathered under the umbrella term of “spirituality” are often redesigned to meet the individual’s goals of leading a “good life”, maximizing potential, and focusing on subjectivity. These new spiritualities draw on formerly esoteric techniques of asceticism that have now spread to the wider population, or to secular contexts where they have undergone diverse processes of interpretation and re-appropriation. For example, in her study of secular forms of asceticism, the sociologist Isabelle Jonveaux (2019) relates the current success of Christian monastic fasting practices to a concern with purifying the self. Likewise, Radermacher (2017) examines how evangelical dieting and fitness classes allow for the sacralization of the ideals of the secular body and a sense of the self. Such appropriations make spiritualities part of the popular culture and its neoliberal attention to well-being. While critics have emphasized the bias of this new trend toward a category of privileged social agents, others have maintained that the tropes of self-realization

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and well-being are deeply embedded in the mainstream culture, including in the new ethics of self-care and care for the other (Tronto, 1993). Although there is no consensus on the definition of well-being (Alexandrova, 2017), a few subjective proxies are commonly used to gauge individuals’ levels of well-being, such as their capacity to give meaning and purpose to life; their sense of identity and belonging; and their perceptions and expectations for behaving in the world. Spiritualities are commonly seen as having a positive influence on people’s health and well-being (Pargament, 2002; Biberman & Whitty, 1997; Mitroff & Denton, 1999; Calicchia & Graham, 2006; Fabricatore et  al., 2000). Among the benefits of leading a spiritual life, researchers cite the reduction of stress, anxiety, and depression, as well as an improved capacity to manage emotions. (Good et al., 2015; González-González, 2018). Specifically, Eastern spiritual techniques are those practices most frequently evoked in response to the performance and productivity concerns of the neoliberal and capitalist system (Purser & Milillo, 2015; Purser, 2019). Yet, upon closer examination of the empirical findings, well-being does not appear to be the direct result of religious practices per se but rather of the social relationships and networks that spiritual practices involve and generate. That being said, some non-Western cases offer interesting counter-examples. In the context of the Chinese state, where congregational religion is highly regulated and restricted, Yunsong and his colleagues (2016) show that the private dimension of religion positively impacts believers’ well-being by helping them to improve their sense of social status relative to non-religious Chinese, even as rapid economic changes have been accompanied by a rise in social inequality. Empirical and critical studies can contribute to this conversation on spirituality in the social sciences, as the inchoateness of this topic does not reflect the apparent importance of spirituality in people’s lives today. In fact, whereas the thriving culture of well-being probably owes part of its success to the popularization of psychological theories (a matter that Watts and Mossière discuss further in this volume), it also heavily hinges on the resources that religious traditions are able to offer. In this book, we go further by drawing on ethnographic case studies that address the ways in which neoliberalism has blurred the boundaries between religion and well-being. By exploring how spirituality unfolds for people from diverse religious backgrounds, and social contexts, the authors discuss the dynamics of the contemporary regime of spirituality, the ethics of well-being, and the consumerist/neoliberal paradigm. They explore how spirituality and well-being have become entangled and inspire new processes of creativity and innovation, and establish new informal authorities, including the authority of the self on the self. This focus on the subject also calls into question the very nature of the subjectivities involved. The contributions in this book exemplify how the new focus on spirituality and its appropriation into the realm of well-being can reveal the mutations and new regulations of religious life in contemporary societies.

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4 Spirituality and Well-Being in a Neoliberal Age A number of common topics emerge from the contributions in this volume, one being the appropriation of spiritualities in a neoliberal and consumerist frame, with mindfulness meditation as the most cited practice (Dane & Brummel, 2014). Stemming from Asian Buddhism, this meditation technique has been dis-embedded from its soteriological context and transposed to the secular West by the physician Jon Kabbat-Zin. In his influential essay “Beyond McMindfulness”, professor of management and Zen teacher Ronald Purser (2019) argues that Western reinterpretations of mindfulness have “denatured” and reduced the practice into a self-help technique that fits the individualistic consumerist and materialistic culture to which it is promoted through European and North American yoga schools. As new “capitalist spiritualities”, yoga and mindfullness reproduce and sustain institutional and corporate power at the expense of social change. There is an emerging consensus in the literature that spiritual practices have been rebranded to facilitate neoliberal governmentality and produce neoliberal subjects. The sociologist Veronique Altglas (2008) examines how yogic techniques of relaxation promote an art of well-being that is based on the value placed on self-­fulfillment and that fits well with the neoliberal mechanics of flexibility and adjustment to the entrepreneurial purpose of productivity. In this way, well-being is defined as a mode of personal development that follows the ethics of personal moral fulfillment and self-care, such as in the marketing strategy of the yoga clothing company Lululemon (Lavrence & Lozanski, 2014). This model grants a novel sense of autonomy to individuals and assigns them the responsibility to fulfill their potential as liberal subjects in regard to educational success, personal health and moral obligations. In such a setting, spiritual practices offer a set of techniques centered on self-reflexivity (Foucault, 2001) that extends “biopower”, that is the power exerted on individuals and population’s lives by governing their bodies, from the neoliberal logics of control to an internal conditioning processes. The Slovenian philosopher Slavoj Zizek argues that New Age spiritualities and their quest for perfection function as ideological supplements that legitimate the neoliberal rationale governing contemporary societies. He depicts the Western Buddhist meditative stance as “arguably the most efficient way, for us, to fully participate in the capitalist dynamic while retaining the appearance of mental sanity” (Zizek, 2001, p.  20). By and large, critical authors consider that such practices, outwardly aimed at helping the individual to cope with a stress-inducing environment, contribute to the reinforcement of the neoliberal status quo. French philosopher Alain Ehrenberg has explored in depth how the onus of this heavy responsibility is placed upon the individual, which likely drives the subject to experience personal, economic and social insecurity and results in personal suffering through a process he calls “the fatigue of being oneself” (fatigue d’être soi) (2010). In this volume, Christophe Pons and Galen Watts discuss case studies in which spiritual views and experiences entail alternative approaches, revealing that

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our current understandings of spiritualities of well-being are not clear cut. For example, while engagement with spirituality is meant to increase well-being by inculcating a new ethics of self-care and self-monitoring, sociologist Kristin Baker shows that spirituality practices can paradoxically expand the definition of illness to encompass emotional swings and oscillations that intensify the need for therapeutic monitoring. This locates the subject within a never-ending disease–therapy cycle that significantly broadens the scope of medicalization. In his study on the use of mindfulness as a technique for supporting neoliberalism, Purser (2019) shows that while stress and anxiety are pathologized, they are also portrayed as an issue of individuals and not of society. The workplace has become a privileged site for these developments and serves as the nexus between spirituality, well-being and neoliberal constraints. Following Margaret Benefiel (2003), some scholars in management studies have established a new field of research that focuses specifically on spirituality and organizational culture. For example, such scholars have built up a theory of spiritual leadership within the workplace context that is based on evidence of a correlation between spirituality and productivity (Dent et  al., 2005). These approaches, which break through the long-held assumption of an incompatibility between the rational paradigm and spiritual orientation, are rooted in Weber’s (1904) insightful theory on the affinities between the Calvinist ethics of asceticism and a theology of predestination based on temporal personal success on the one hand, and the capitalist quest for profit and productivity that translates work, self-discipline and mundane rewards into new moral values on the other. The current turn toward consumerism in capitalist societies has moved the role of spirituality from that of a tool for transcendence to a corporatized technique, or even a commodity that fits the needs and ideology of business culture and workforce efficiency. Even in societies with strong religious frameworks like Iran, the implementation of Western-style spiritualities may provide middle class populations with additional cultural capital (Bastani et al., 2018). Such neoliberal modes of regulating individuals and populations may cause the transfer of the burden of social services from the state to non-governmental and individual support workers and caregivers (Michaeli, 2017). The psychologist Walsh (2018) contrasts the relationship between these new spiritualities and their application through neoliberal logics by contending that practices like mindfulness offer a means of resistance against neoliberal governmentality, and that these practices affirm the lives that neoliberalism seeks to subjugate. Likewise, Lips-Wiersma and her colleagues (2008) argue that the integration of spiritualities within organizations paves the way for introducing new values and assumptions regarding the management of people and organizations. Stating that all religions share the general notion of compassion, they advocate for the use of “practical compassion” in dealing with management issues in organizational contexts.

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5 The Contributions in This Volume The first section of this volume questions how concerns for well-being in new spiritualities delineate specific definitions of the subject. After distinguishing “well-­ being” from “better-being”, the French anthropologist Christophe Pons posits that the notion of well-being in new spiritualities is an opportunity to question the Western liberal concept of the subject and to explore how spiritual interpretations differ from academic theories of the subject. The ethnographic fieldwork he carried in Portuguese Spiritist centers leads him to propose an alternative view of subjects that are not responsible for themselves but are rather “acted upon” by external forces. Galen Watts also revisits the definition of the subject with a historical review of the relationship between psychology and religion that emphasizes how some religions appropriate and integrate positivist sciences. As Watts draws on personal development discourses and frames them within the contemporary secular turn, Géraldine Mossière’s ethnography exemplifies how this trend unfolds among some Muslim believers who work on improving their piety through the use of emotional coaching techniques. Drawing on the ethnographic fieldwork conducted among converts to Islam in Quebec and in France, she shows how new Muslims relate piety to well-being by referring to tools in behavioral psychology that fit within their definition of the Muslim human being and the struggle (jihad) one conducts within the self (nafs). In the second section, the authors discuss how spirituality is both institutionalized and deregulated when it intermingles with issues of well-being. Lori Beaman and Lauren Strumos examine the role of the legal system and the state in the institutionalization of the spiritualization of bodily, well-being and everyday practices. Reporting on three cases in Canada, the United Kingdom and the United States, they compare how legal frameworks shape the definition of spirituality and the variant role of individual and collective notions of well-being. The anthropologist Behnaz Khosravi explores the diffusion of spiritual practices and personal development programs in Iran. Following the sociologist Altglas, she highlights the class dimension of this movement and argues that these commodified “New Spiritualities” techniques tend to psychologize social life and “convert individual and social problems into psychological troubles”. Khosravi links this process to the de-­politicization of social life in the capitalist or neoliberal context. Mira Karjalainen joins the conversation on spirituality by drawing on her fieldwork in organizational contexts. She provides valuable empirical data that offers further insights into the dynamics between well-being and economic productivity by centering her analysis around four themes (holistic workers, coaxing and controlling spirituality, spiritual solutions for work-related problems, and spirituality as performance). Karjalainen dissects how well-being and spirituality operate in the workplace at the levels of organizational culture and practice as well as at the level of the individual. For example, spiritual labor unfolds in the practice of teleworking that has developed in the aftermath of the COVID-19 public health crisis.

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In the third section, the authors explore how spirituality-inspired lifestyles contribute to the definition and construction of what it means to lead a “good life”. The anthropologist Bettina Schmidt explores this concept in the Brazilian context, in which post-neoliberal changes and the privatization of the health system have clashed with local social and community bonds, ideas of well-being (bemestar), and a local cosmology related to “Mother Earth”. She notes that this traditional worldview is jeopardized by a growing collective trend toward spiritualities and individual responsibility. Since such trends involve holistic understandings of well-being, they favor the widespread use of spiritual resources as complimentary health treatments. The next two contributions broach current concerns for well-being related to the natural world, taking a critical stance vis-à-vis the sense of naturalism implied within these discourses. Paul Bramadat and his colleagues identify a widespread narrative in British Columbia, Canada that builds on a particular set of norms regarding health, purity, and wellness. This is often articulated as a specific orientation toward nature and outdoor activities that Bramadat et al. calls “reverential naturalism”. Framed by neoliberal conditions, this attitude paradoxically reveals how a deep commitment to environmental issues (via apologetics and political postures in defense of nature) gives a counterpoint to neoliberal governance by introducing a strong sense of localism. Henrik Ohlsson also discusses how nature-connection spiritualities bridge well-being with an ecological orientation. His empirical study is based on forest bathing activities that shift the inward life to a concern for the world. Ohlsson contends that this attitude of “subjective activism” could link nature-­ connection spiritualities with public institutions by introducing health-promoting practices in conventional healthcare systems. Lina Aschenbrenner and Ann Koch conclude this section by considering the conjunction between spirituality and well-­ being through aestheticization. Their case study, conducted among practitioners of the neo-spiritual Israeli movement Practice Gaga, examines well-being through the experiential aspects of emotions, sensations and embodiment to find that “art is popularized and, in a sense, democratized to cater to individualist needs”. By bringing nature, art, aestheticization and ecology into the conversation on spiritualities and well-being, this last section drives the volume’s overarching concepts of subject and subjectivity, body and emotions, individual autonomy and agency around the issue of interdependency and vulnerability. This leaves open new avenues for thinking about well-being as the counterpoint of the existential condition of suffering.

References Alexandrova, A. (2017). A philosophy for the science of well-being. Oxford University Press. Altglas, V. (2008). Indian gurus and the quest for self-perfection among the educated middle-­ classes. In J.  Stolz (Ed.), Salvation goods and religious markets: Theoretical concepts and applications (pp. 211–234). Peter Lang. Ammerman, N. (2013). Sacred stories, spiritual tribes: Finding religion in everyday life. Oxford University Press.

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Bastani, S., Shariati, S., & Khosravi, B. (2018). Consumption of spiritual goods, a way to develop cultural capital. An inquiry on the new age spiritualities in Iran. Journal of Social Sciences, Ferdowsi University of Mashhad, 15(32), 57–62. Benefiel, M. (2003). Mapping the terrain of spirituality in organizations research. Journal of Organizational Change Management, 16(4), 367–377. Bergeaud-Blackler, F. (2017). Le marché halal ou l’invention d’une tradition. Seuil. Biberman, J., & Whitty, M. (1997). A postmodern spiritual future for work. Journal of Organizational Change Management, 10(2), 130–138. Brown, W. (2015). In the ruins of neoliberalism: The rise of antidemocratic politics in the west. Columbia University Press. Calicchia, J.  A., & Graham, L.  B. (2006). Assessing the relationship between spirituality, life stressors, and social resources: Buffers of stress in graduate students. North American Journal of Psychology, 8, 307–320. Carrette, J. R., & King, R. (2004). Selling spirituality: The silent takeover of religion. Routledge. Csordas, T. (2009). Transnational transcendence: Essays on religion and globalization. University of California Press. Dane, E., & Brummel, B.  J. (2014). Examining workplace mindfulness and its relations to job performance and turnover intention. Human Relations, 67(1), 105–128. Dardot, P., & Laval, C. (2010). La nouvelle raison du monde. La Découverte. Dent, E., et al. (2005). Spirituality and leadership: An empirical review of definitions, distinctions, and embedded assumptions. The Leadership Quarterly, 16, 625–653. Ehrenberg, A. (2010). La fatigue d’être soi. Odile Jacob. Elliott, A., & Lemert, C. (2009). The new individualism: The emotional costs of globalization. Routledge. Fabricatore, A. N., et al. (2000). Personal spirituality as a moderator between stressors and subjective well-being. Journal of Psychology and Theology, 28, 221–228. Fath, S. (2008). Dieu XXL, la révolution des megachurches. Autrement. Foucault, M. (2001). L’herméneutique du sujet. Gallimard. García Ruiz, J., & Michel, P. (2012). Et Dieu sous-traita le salut au marché. Armand Colin. González-González, M. (2018). Reconciling spirituality and workplace: Towards a balanced proposal for occupational health. Journal of Religion and Health, 57(1), 349–359. Good, D. J., et al. (2015). Contemplating mindfulness at work: An integrative review. Journal of Management, 42(1), 114–142. Habermas, J. (2008). Notes on a post-secular society, signsandsight.com, 18 June. Available online: http://www.signandsight.com/features/1714.html. Accessed 2 Aug 2017. Harvey, D. (2007). A brief history of neoliberalism. Oxford University Press. Hayek, F. A. (1960). The constitution of liberty. Routledge. Heelas, P., Woodhead, L., et  al. (2005). The spiritual revolution. Why religion is giving way to spirituality. Blackwell. Hervieu-Léger, D., & Willaime, J.-P. (2001). Sociologies et religion. Approches classiques. Presses universitaires de France. Howell, J. (2013). ‘Calling’ and training: Role innovation and religious De-differentiation in commercialised Indonesian Islam. Journal of Contemporary Religion, 28(3), 401–419. Illouz, E. (2008). Saving the modern soul  – Therapy, emotions, and the culture of self-help. University of California Press. Jain, A. R. (2015). Selling yoga: From counterculture to pop culture. Oxford University Press. Jankelevitch, V. (1925). Georg Simmel, Philosophie de la vie. Revue de Métaphysique et de Morale, 32(2), 213–257. Jonveaux, I. (2019). La redécouverte de l’ascèse. Etudes, 3, 63–77. Lavrence, C., & Lozanski, K. (2014). ‘This is not your practice life’: Lululemon and the neoliberal governance of self. Canadian Review of Sociology/Revue canadienne de sociologie, 51(1), 76–94. Lemke, T. (2001). The birth of ‘bio-politics’: Michel Foucault’s lecture at the Collège de France on neo-Liberal governmentality. Economy and Society, 30(2), 190–207.

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Lips-Wiersma, M., & Nilakant, V. (2008). Practical compassion: Toward a critical spiritual foundation for corporate responsibility. In J. Biberman & L. Tischler (Eds.), Spirituality in business (pp. 51–72). Palgrave Macmillan. Martikainen, T. (2006). Consuming a cathedral: Commodification of religious places in late modernity. Fieldwork in Religion, 2(2), 127–145. Martikainen, T., & Gauthier, F. (2016). Religion in the neoliberal age: Political economy and modes of governance. Routledge. Martin, C. (2012). Neoliberal mythmaking: On “Well-being” as the new Protestant work ethic. Religion and Theology, 19(3–4), 204–218. Mautner, O., & Mizrachi, N. (2020). When Buddhist vipassanā travels to Jewish West Bank settlements: Openness without cosmopolitanism. Ethnic and Racial Studies, 43(7). Meintel, D., & Mossière, G. (2011). Tendances actuelles des rituels, pratiques et discours de guérison au sein des groupes religieux contemporains. Quelques réflexions. Ethnologies, 33(1), 5–18. Michaeli, I. (2017). Self-care: An act of political warfare or a neoliberal trap? Development, 60(1–2), 50–56. Mitroff, I., & Denton, E. A. (1999). A spiritual audit of corporate America: A hard look at spirituality, religion, and values in the workplace. Jossey-Bass. Mossière, G. (in press). Youth “political spirituality”: The emergence of a subculture among new Muslims in the west? Journal of Contemporary Religion. Obadia, L. (2013). La marchandisation de Dieu. Économies religieuses. CNRS Editions. Pargament, K. I. (2002). The bitter and the sweet: An evaluation of the costs and benefits of religiousness. Psychological Inquiry, 13(3), 168–181. Prades, P. (2014). De la sainteté à la santé. Puritanisme, psychothérapies, développement personnel. Le Bord de l'eau. Purser, R. (2019). McMindfulness: How mindfulness became the new capitalist spirituality. Repeater. Purser, R., & Milillo, J. (2015). Mindfulness revisited: A Buddhist-based conceptualization. Journal of Management Inquiry, 24(1), 3–24. Radermacher, M. (2017). Devotional fitness. An analysis of contemporary dieting and fitness programs. Springer. Rawls, J. (2001). Justice as fairness: A restatement. Belknap Press. Rudnyckyj, D. (2009). Spiritual economies: Islam and neoliberalism in contemporary Indonesia. Cultural Anthropology, 4(1), 104–141. Scherer, B., & Waistell, J. (2018). Incorporating mindfulness: Questioning capitalism. Journal of Management, Spirituality & Religion, 15(2), 123–140. Seeman, D., & Karlin, M. (2019). Mindfulness and Hasidic modernism: Toward a contemplative ethnography. Religion and Society, 10(1), 44–62. Simmel, G. (1905). A contribution to the sociology of religion. American Journal of Sociology, 11(3), 359–376. Simmel, G. (1997 [1911]). The problem of religion today. In G. H. J. Helle & N. Ludwig (Eds.), Essays on religion (pp. 7–19). Yale University Press. Stolz, J. (2008). Salvation goods and religious markets: Theoretical concepts and applications. Peter Lang. Tronto, J. C. (1993). Moral boundaries: A political argument for an ethic of care. Routledge. Vidal, D. (2017). Aux marges du sacré: Lectures en religions. Éditions L’Harmattan. Walsh, Z. (2018). Mindfulness under neoliberal governmentality: Critiquing the operation of biopower in corporate mindfulness and constructing queer alternatives. Journal of Management, Spirituality & Religion, 15(2), 109–122. Weber, M. (1989 [1904–1905]). L’Éthique protestante et l’esprit du capitalism. Agora Pocket. Whyte, J. (2019). The morals of the market: Human rights and the rise of neoliberalism. Verso. Wood, M. (2007). Possession, power and the new age: Ambiguities of authority in neoliberal societies. Ashgate. Žižek, S. (2001). On belief. Routledge.

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Géraldine Mossière is an anthropologist and associate professor at the Université de Montreal’s Institute of Religious Studies. She has published more than 50 scholarly books, book chapters and articles that address contemporary religiosities, including religious diversity in secular societies and the articulation between spirituality and health. She examines the diverse dimensions of religious conversion (transnationality, interethnic and intergenerational dynamics) as well as (non)believing contemporary subjectivities (spirituality, healing, neoliberalism). She is the author of Converties à l’islam. Parcours de femmes en France et au Québec (Presses de l’Université de Montréal, 2013).  

How Can a Subject Be More Than Himself? Spiritual Subjectivities and Well-­Being in Portuguese Spiritism and the New Spiritualities Christophe Pons

Abstract  In Western societies, “new spiritualities” are a response to the supposed needs of the idealized figure of a liberal subject. In other words, they offer methods and ethics for seeking well-being, discovering our true inner self, and achieving self-realization. Based on ethnographic research conducted in Portugal in various contexts of alternative spiritual therapies, this paper highlights a recurrent contradiction in conceptions of what a subject is. On the one hand, we find a neoliberal conception that emphasizes the formation of true subjectivity as a return to an “authentic and original self”. On the other hand, there is the pragmatic phenomenology of experiencing the vacuity of the self, the uncertainty of the subject, the anxiety of not being oneself and of being “acted upon” by an alterity. I suggest that there is a tension between these two conceptions, both within the new spiritualities (which are nurtured by a conception of the idealized subject as a self) and also within the contemporary social sciences (based on the epistemological concept of Ego), which have tended to be theoretically reluctant to consider the possibility of a loss of the self and of a subject “acted upon” by an alterity, both in thought and in action. Keywords  Well-being · Spiritism · Spiritualism · Portugal · Cape Verdean · Subjectivities · Self · Gender · Mediumship · Possession · Conversion How does the question of “well-being” arise among audiences who attend the many churches and centers devoted to the new spiritualities? In the so-called religious market of contemporary Western societies, the concept of well-being is a recurring The original version of this chapter was revised: There is a typo error in the word that read “Spiritualties” whereas it should be “Spiritualities” and the same has been corrected now. The correction to this chapter is available at https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-06263-6_12 C. Pons (*) IDEMEC – CNRS-AMU, Marseille, France ICS, ULisboa, Lisbon, Portugal e-mail: [email protected] © The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2022, corrected publication 2022 G. Mossière (ed.), New Spiritualities and the Cultures of Well-being, Religion, Spirituality and Health: A Social Scientific Approach 6, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-06263-6_2

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feature of the rhetoric and objective of the “new spiritualities”. They suggest that to achieve well-being in the here and now is to achieve success as a being, where success is not heavenly salvation but a pragmatic and accessible goal in this world and in this life. The concept points to full self-realization as a fulfillment of the subject.1 A similar perspective can be found, for example, in many Pentecostal churches that value success and full self-realization in focusing on our earthly lives and on entering the temporal church as the kingdom of God, rather than expecting the spiritual kingdom of Heaven (Meyer, 1999). In other words, the new spiritualities draw on the concept of well-being as a state of subjectivity by way of offering a recipe of offers and practices, of methods and ethics, that involve discovering a true inner self and thereby achieving freedom. They somehow also emphasize the need to fulfill the supposed needs of an idealized figure of the contemporary liberal subject. What they have to offer supports a process of “becoming oneself”, based on the belief that everyone can “become oneself”. However, there is a clear contradiction between that belief and what people generally experience, which is mostly suffering and misfortune. For those who cross the threshold of spiritual centers and churches, the challenge is often rather more modest: instead of attaining full well-being, their aim is to achieve, at most, a sense of “better-being”, as a way of ridding themselves of their troubles, of being less afflicted by difficulties and abusive lives. In other word, the idea of experiencing the almost hedonistic and liberal concept of “well-being” as a total and omnipotent enjoyment of “being” is a long way off… As we will see through the narratives of people encountered in Lisbon (Portugal) in Kardecist-Spiritist centers,2 Christian denominations and alternative spiritual care structures, new spiritualities are invariably faced with a tension between two aspects of our conception of what a subject is assumed to be and how the concept of well-being is assumed to operate. On the one hand, they apply a neoliberal conception  – strongly emphasized among contemporary centers and trends (including monotheisms)  – that promotes the idea of achieving well-being through self-­ realization, the shaping of true subjectivity as the return to an “authentic and original self”. However, on the other hand, they also welcome people caught in the pragmatic phenomenology of experiencing depression, possession and even conversion as a determined state of subjectivity underlying the vacuity of the self and the uncertainty of the agent behind the subject. In this chapter, I will examine narratives and practices related to interpretations of spiritual subjectivity and will propose a theoretical framework to outline them. I will then suggest that they raise interesting questions about the meaning of well-­ being and current conceptions of “human beings as subjects”. By confronting the distressing experiences of “not being oneself”, of “being acted upon” by an alterity, of “vanishing”, or of “being absent to oneself”, they challenge the representation of the liberal subject in global societies and in contemporary social science research.  In this chapter, “subject” is used in the philosophical sense of the word. More conceptual insights are developed in the first section on “theoretical settings”. 2  This research is based on fieldwork conducted in Portugal in 2019 and supported in 2019 by an SMI grant from the INSHS-CNRS, France. 1

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Interestingly, this issue is not completely removed from current (academic) theories of the “subject”, which are also assumed to support a view of human beings as naturally free and agentive, the ultimate goal of liberal subjectivities being self-­ realization. While there have been many critical discussions (especially in philosophy and anthropology) around the Western conception of the singularity of human beings from an ontological point of view (Mcintosch, 2018) and in terms of “dividual”/individual person (Strathern, 1988), the central theoretical and ideological reference remains a singular, autonomous and free subject, at least as an objective to be achieved. Surprisingly, the concept of well-being in the new spiritualities provides an opportunity for addressing the western liberal concept of the subject and for questioning the extent to which spiritual interpretations differ from academic theories of the subject.

1 Previous Theoretical Settings: On the Concept of “Subject” and the Possibility of Not Being Oneself For contemporary research in the social sciences, the possibility of not being oneself – in the sense of “being acted upon” by an alterity, of vanishing, or of not being the author of one’s thoughts and actions – is hardly conceivable and is usually viewed as a pure representation or belief. One of the reasons for this is that the social sciences have gradually learned to view the concept of subject in terms of “self-governmentality”, to use Foucault’s formulation (2001). In other words, they have learned to examine the constitution of the self as an ethical subject, to examine “the work of oneself on oneself” (what we usually term subjectivities), to examine how human beings are thinking and acting subjects and, therefore, how they are also political subjects. Clearly, this (neo)liberal injunction to become oneself is widely viewed as the only path to well-being. Today, the social sciences – which have come increasingly to assume a sense of political responsibility – conduct much of their research in terms that give priority to this agentive and politicized subject. A few decades ago, the same disciplines granted more attention to determinism, a view based on the assumption that the subject is less active than acted upon; thus the subject was, in any case, objectified by the set of structures in which it is caught. In any event, most research in the social sciences is conducted within a framework that oscillates between, on the one hand, somewhat deterministic and objectifying analyzes of the subject and, on the other hand, somewhat subjectivist and ethical analyzes that grant greater autonomy to the subject (Gaulejac de, 2009). However, from one end of this spectrum to the other, human beings remain both the subject and the agent of thought, allowing them to be themselves (Pradeau, 2003) and to think about “well-being”. Having defined this “classical” framework, I would like to question the status of the interpretations that depart from it. By this I mean the spiritual interpretations that assume the contradiction, since the new spiritualities are the heirs of neoliberalism and therefore use the rhetoric of self-governmentality, yet they also suggest the possibility of a split between the subject and the agent of thought. How should this

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contradiction, its use and the underlying claim be understood? It is also necessary to underline that the spiritual interpretation of the possibility of the split is supposed to be the characteristic that distinguishes humankind, by introducing the divine and suggesting that there is more than the self in one single human being, something beyond the subject-agent. According to the “classical framework”, all these interpretations should be placed at the end of the deterministic spectrum, where human beings are caught in structures of representations that confine and enclose them – where determinisms cause them to believe that they may not exist, that they may disappear, and that they can be transformed or substituted. This is a traditional sociological way of thinking according to which human beings may believe themselves to be “carried away”, whether of their own free will (mystical conversion, spiritual visitation, prayer, grace, artistic creation) or not (passion, possession, witchcraft, obsession, depression, burn out, bipolarity, duplication, self-deprivation). Thus, in this view, “not being oneself” is merely a manner of speaking, an illusion of disappearance since the link between the subject “I” and the agent “self” is assumed to be unbreakable. This is the Cartesian theoretical assumption of the Ego. This assumption would be valid if the consubstantial bond tying the subject “I” to the agent “self” were entirely unbreakable. However, modern philosophy in the twentieth century (e.g. Husserl, 1989; Ricœur, 1990; Merleau-Ponty, 2001) highlighted the fundamental problem of Cartesianism and its underlying “idealism”, implying that the world only begins to exist with human consciousness. The focus of the debate is the alleged uniqueness of the subject-agent and the possibility of its objectivation as a “thing in itself”. Philosophers have provided a critical re-examination of the modern myth of a “phenomenological egology” and the historical invention of the modern subject as its own agent, emphasizing a view according to which “man becomes a subject when he decides in himself to be his own foundation in both science and action” (Descombes, 2004: 325). Many contemporary publications devoted to the so-called “subjectivist turn” have re-interrogated the supposedly established fact of the subject-­object relationship (Bryant et  al., 2011; Bitbol, 2014; Keck et  al., 2015; Haggard, 2017). What they point to is an epistemological vertigo. Whatever the cost – and there is a cost – the human sciences recognize that they are built on the assumption of a subject (in itself) shaped by moral and ideological values (the free subject in action, rights and thoughts) rather than based on facts. Therefore, they have no choice but to agree that questioning the nonexistence of the self is theoretically just as legitimate as the assertion of its existence. In short, there is no more self than there is otherness, but equally no less. Drawing on the following ethnographic vignettes, I will highlight various spiritual interpretations of the self. They may be viewed as instances of mediumship, or even witchcraft. I suggest they are based on two major assumptions. The first hypothesis is that it is possible, for a human being, of being acted upon by another, by an alterity – in the sense of not being the author of one’s thoughts and actions. This hypothesis is hardly problematic, and is even rather sociological; in most societies, it is accepted that someone can be affected, in his integrity, by external determinisms. In this perspective, achieving well-being consists of a restoration of

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self-determination. The second hypothesis is more problematic. It posits that it is possible not to be oneself: that is to say, in addition to not being the author of one’s thoughts and actions, it suggests a conception of absence, of disappearance, of absolute alterity. According to this second perspective, a quest for well-being might involve something other than the self. What does this mean? This is problematic since it runs counter to a foundational assumption of the naturalistic framework that lies at the core of the human sciences: the idea that a subject $ (speaking in the first person “I”) is consubstantial with the agent S (“self”) that is specific to the speaking human being. This consubstantiality of the subject “I” and of the agent “self” ($↔S) is of significant epistemological importance since it is central to the uniqueness of the human being, the basis of the claim that a human being is free and agentive. Today, most research in the social sciences goes some way towards implying a dissolution of the uniqueness of the $↔S link; they posit that within the subject – the “I” that speaks – there is a plurality, with lines of subjectivity deeply informed by the wider social and cultural context in which they find expression and take shape. As Derrida remarked, it becomes possible to speak of “the subjective diversity of one and the same individual” (1962: 81–82). It means that the social environments, groups, moral, ideological and ethical contexts with which a human being engages, whether in succession or simultaneously, generate diverse lines of subjectivity within that individual: in other words, the “I” that thinks and speaks is not always the same. The contemporary social sciences broadly agree with this view. There are, in short, several “subjects” ($, $2, $3…) that tend to “ventriloquize” within one and the same agent, or “self” (S). This may be viewed and represented as a subject(s)-self link.



$1 $2 $3 $4 ↔ S $5 $6

Acknowledging this point is already a major advance. However, it is rarely taken to its logical conclusion since there remains a substantialist reflex that seeks to connect these various subjects $ to a single self S. Yet since the subject(s)-self relationship is both breakable and molded by the cultural and cosmological that shapes it, why not posit the possibility of a plurality of agents within the same subject? What is there to prevent us from doing so, other than an old substantialist reflex motivated by the fear of losing whatever little remains? Indeed, while the social sciences have already acknowledged that there are several subjects, do they not also need to sacrifice the “self” to which they relate? It is on this basis that the contemporary social sciences have opted to re-combine the various subjects into a single self. To assume the possibility of a plurality of agents – not only a self, but also alters – entails a broken consubstantiality (i.e. a break in the $↔S link) that implies a risk of losing oneself (Butler, 1997). However, theoretically, there is no argument to prevent us from doing so. In fact, it is, paradoxically, not unreasonable and – despite liberal

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arguments rooted in the ideology of the self  – it is precisely the view that many spiritual interpretations take in the quest to achieve well-being.

2 Lena and José:3 Leaving the Jehovah Witnesses and Joining a Methodist Church Lena is Portuguese and was born in France in 1969 after her parents fled the Salazar dictarorial regime. Her father was a mason and her mother a cleaner. It was in France that they discovered the Jehovah’s Witnesses and converted (in a Portuguese social environment). Lena grew up and was socialized in the “world of church”; as a child, she attended Bible studies in friends’ homes and spent every Sunday in worship, soon becoming involved in door-to-door evangelism. At the age of thirteen, she decided to be baptized. Today, she explains that it was only at a relatively late stage that she realized the world in which she lived, from birth, had been that of God, not hers. “I didn’t know who I was. I didn’t even know if I was! What were my tastes, if indeed I had any? Everything I did, whatever I thought, was related to God, not me. At eighteen, I wasn’t sure who I was. If there was ‘another world’ where I could be someone else. Having grown up in the world of Jehovah’s Witnesses, this ‘other’ world, possibly ‘mine’, was completely unknown. In fact, I didn’t know if I existed.” However, Lena does not blame God; instead, her anger is directed at her parents: “I’ve always been close to God. I’ve never been mad at him. When I left the church, I needed to distance myself from Him in order to discover myself. I no longer knew how to speak to Him, how to pray. But He always accompanied me. I blamed my parents for not having given me the opportunity to first discover myself. When I now look at myself, my life, my childhood and my adolescence, I realize I didn’t have my own personality. I was probably a model child because, through me, it was God revealing Himself. But where was ‘I’? I think I only started to ‘be’ when I reached the age of eighteen.” Lena’s story is a typical narrative of what is often described as a sectarian risk, particularly in France, where the fear of mental manipulation and brainwashing preventing individuals from being what they are really meant to be is especially prevalent. However, Lena was born and raised in France, not under a dictatorship like her parents. In that sense, she is the heir to a society founded on the principle that individuals exist for their own sake, have their own essence, and are absolutely free to be themselves, conceived not only as a right but also a duty. In Lena’s words, a deep rupture occurred at the age of eighteen, convincing her that there is a “Lena” that she did not previously know, a “Lena” to discover and not invent! Moreover, this belief remains unchallenged in her mind, representing a major breaking point with her parents’ horizon of thought. For them, “we” are what we decide to follow and do: “being” is therefore a method, not a state. When she was eighteen, Lena broke away from this view, making a conscious choice in favor of subjectivity: in other words, she stopped pursuing the subjective pattern of God’s

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will and chose to “discover” (rather than invent) the subjective schemata of an as yet unknown self. Clearly, the “I” who speaks, acts and thinks must become that of Lena and no longer that of God. Lena left France two years later and settled permanently in Lisbon, Portugal. José’s choice provides a different perspective. José is Cape Verdean and was born on the island of Santiago in 1970 before emigrating to Europe after the end of the dictatorship, aged twelve. He grew up in a traditional Catholic social environment and does not share Lena’s experience of childhood faith. Two years after arriving in Portugal, he began to work as a mason and was soon ready to “fazi a bida” (earn a living), the creole expression used to describe a person who earns their own living and gradually becomes independent. However, José explained that life, from a young age, led him straight down the path of an all too common Cape Verdean subjectivity found among successful young men who give in to the desires of this world. “Money, sex and drugs  – all three caused me to lose myself! They’re the dangers man faces because man doesn’t have the ability to regulate his own conduct!”. José says he was “caught” by the desire for possession, to the point of getting into debt and committing theft, by the desire for women, to the point of having children for whom he took no responsibility, and by the desires of the senses, to the point of exhaustion. “Fifteen years later, I was almost a wreck, I was violent, confused, close to suicide. I was poor, an alcoholic, exhausted, a grass addict smoking two packs of cigarettes a day, and lord knows how many rums and beers. You see what I mean, you see all these poor Cape Verdean men how they are. So I had no choice but to turn to God. He was my opportunity. But He was the one who did everything! It was He who transformed my life. And since I handed my life over to Him, what he’s done with it has been truly amazing! When I was in charge of my own life, it turned to ruins!” Shortly before the age of thirty, José converted to Evangelical Protestantism and has remained faithful to the Methodist Church ever since. José’s narrative illustrates what the social sciences refer to as a failure in the process of self-realization or even as the flip side of a process in which the individual fails to achieve self-liberation, becoming what is sometimes termed an “anti-­ subject” (Wieviorka, 2012). Phenomena such as depression, burnout, bipolar disorder and addictions, leading to renunciation, violence, suicide or radicalization – to name but a few – are assumed to be the result of an inability to positively respond to the contemporary injunction to succeed in being oneself. The individual who fails to value himself becomes trapped in a negative self-image (Ehrenberg, 1995). This view of the negation of the self is not without value, but is based on an argument involving a consubstantial link between the subject and the self; indeed, it is even because of this hypothesized link ($↔S) that the human being is urged to liberate himself. However, José thinks differently. He underlines the concept of agency to underscore his choice “to be acted upon” by God. God became the agent of his life: “My only wish was to let Him take the reins”, he says. José does not deny that there was an “I” who decided to entrust to God a life that was too difficult to lead, but he simply summarizes the role as such: “It was ‘I’ who decided to let myself be guided by God, but it was the only thing I did. Because even the

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possibility of choice was placed in my hands by God. There are so many people who never get this opportunity! I had this chance, and that’s why it’s my duty to give it to others. Since then, it’s been about Him, not me, and it’s much better that way!”. Now José is happy to speak of “submission”. “It’s not complicated; you just have to grant permission with your heart. Then you get to feel the spiritual transformation that the Holy Spirit does inside you. You just have to make the decision, and God does the rest”. José illustrates the opinion of Lena’s parents. For him, “to be” is a method, and it matters little whether or not there is a “real” self. José provides no narrative of his interiority as such since he has no interest in what he is, fundamentally, at the intra-­ psychic level. What matters is the (divine) schemata of subjectivity that he decided to follow by way of revealing the goodness inside him. This is because José is nevertheless convinced that he is full of kindness and love, and this is precisely what the Subject-God shows, through him, to everyone. However, in this view, the kindness at the heart of his being has nothing to do with a substance specific to José. It is merely a capital of goodness that is inside him because he is a human being, no more. As such, he is also filled with the worst evil. For José  – as indeed for the famous Hollywood character of Darth Vader – everything is a question of choice of method (or schemata of subjectivity). José chose the Methodist method of the holiness movement. Lena shares José’s conception. She suggests that as human beings, we are merely the support of subjectivities that express themselves. In other words, the subjectivity of God is a technology, and whoever commits to it becomes a representative of God: when it speaks, acts and even thinks, the subject “I” who does all of this is none other than “God”. In short, here is a mediumship-based conception. For Lena and José, there is no doubt about it; she achieved this early in her life, while he was able to do so at a later stage. However, Lena and José differ in two key respects: on the question of the existence of a self as a specific substance and on the idea of well-­ being as a choice. Lena believes in a self as a personal “essence” and thinks that well-being should come from the realization of such a self; a view not shared by José, for whom well-being is instead “without a self”. Somehow, José’ point of view is far more empirical and even sociological: he believes that human beings are evolved animals who only need to follow a method and that only God has a true essence. Thus, he explains that all that he is can be understood by sociology; he is able to offer many detailed explanations on Cape Verdean society, on the structural problems determining the fate of young Cape Verdeans. I met José for the first time in a center offering spiritual advice, care and well-being set up by his church. Today, many neo-evangelical churches have created specific branches in response to the growing demand for well-being, with some  – such as the Pentecostal Universal Church of the Kingdom of God (Igreja Universal do Reino de Deus) – having even renamed their “local places of worship” (lugares de oração do bairro) as “spiritual support centers” (Centro de ajuda spiritual). José is also actively involved in a youth sports association in the Cape Verdean “ghetto” where he lives, Casal da Mira, located on the outskirts of the suburb of Amadora in Lisbon. At Casal da Mira,

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he is an exemplary and socially important figure who claims to be acted upon by God: “All the goodness I do, it is God who does it through me”.

3 The Theoretical Pitfall of Well-Being as an “Alter” With these two examples, the possibility of “being acted upon”, and the uncertainty of the agent behind the subject, cease to be mere curiosities. They become a building block of the phenomenology of spiritual experience that can be seen across a wide spectrum of forms of piety: quest for spiritual well-being, religious conversions, mysticisms, healings, curses, possessions and mediumship. However, they present the social sciences with a theoretical pitfall that many disciplines struggle to deal with conceptually and indeed generally prefer to circumvent altogether. Consider, for example, José’s religious conversion. Paradoxically, while it implies a recognition of authority, determination and even submission to the power of a chosen spiritual alterity, social science interpretations usually transform it into a process of empowerment (Taylor, 1990). In this view, José is to be seen as an Ego endowed with its “appropriation of deep intentionality”. Some converts to monotheisms (albeit only some) would undoubtedly give credence to this interpretation, drawing on a discourse of conversion as well-being centered around the liberation of, and return to, an “authentic self” – in other words, a sincere and original inner self. But many others would not, as José himself points out. Nevertheless, the social sciences tend to support the spiritual reading of the “return to the self” by showing how, through discourse and praxis, a human being (as illustrated by the case of Lena) shapes his own subjectivity by approaching what he really is, as a true original essence. The emphasis on the attributive subjective schemata $↔S in conversion is thought to apply to new Christianities (Cannell, 2006), Islams (Mahmood, 2005), Judaisms (Altglas, 2014), and modern esotericism (Pons, 2011). However, this view raises several problems. The first problem is to define the theoretical circumstances under which it makes sense to take as a given – or simply to assume – that a social human being has a true and original essence. No evidence exists to support such a contention, except informants’ narratives – such as those of Lena. However, others – like José – offer opposing narratives. The second problem relates to the voluntarist perspective that grants believers a high degree of autonomy of action and decision-making; it thus reduces the social and cosmological environment to something that merely informs custom and practice. A third and final problem is the very process of subjectivity, which tends to be seen merely from the perspective of the production of the self. After all, if we assume that a human being is both actor (i.e. the subject that speaks, acts and creates) and author (i.e. the agent and owner of his decisions to act and create), why would he merely seek to produce the self? The danger here is to consider subjectivity as a process that results in the production of an idealized self. Believers often claim to want to cease being themselves in order to reveal an alterity – in this instance, the realm of the divine. Thus, the focus on the self tends to reduce the phenomenon of subjectivity to a mere matrix of experience

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and goals and to conceal other possibilities (Luhrmann, 2017). As José points out, attention needs to be paid to the range of discourses and attitudes underpinning a different conception according to which “it is God who knows and does”, with the faithful merely “following His will”, “going where He wants them to go” and “doing the work He commands them to do on earth”. These common views unambiguously maintain a constructivist and performative mode of the “being acted upon” or of “being-an-other/alter”. The same is true of discourses and practices surrounding the idea of the fear of transformation – for example, when it is said about someone that “he is not the person he used to be”, that “he has become a different person”, or that “he has lost his own strength and will”. Here we are moving into the conceptual realm of spells and curses – in other words, the idea of being affected by an alterity that annihilates existence (the being there) and the ability to act and think (Geschiere, 2013). Today, many contemporary churches, mosques and spiritualist centers seek to address an audience especially concerned with the need and demand for fighting these kinds of “subjective obsession” (Mossière, 2016). While it may be possible, in some circumstances, to identify such alterity and to protect oneself from it, the possibility that one may be dealing with a spiritual entity should also be entertained. This is often the case at the Kardecist-Spiritist Center where I met Lena, who was now seeking for well-being by trialing a new “method” – or schemata of subjectivity – substituting the agent God by the self.

4 Looking for the Agent: The Fear of Witchcraft and Gender Troubles in Spiritist Centers Is the consubstantiality of the subject-self link ($↔S) more intuitive than its opposite? Therefore, is the well-being of the self more intuitive than that of an inner alter? Indeed, it seems reasonable to think that everyone is the subject-agent of their thoughts, words and actions; conversely, it seems curious, even pathological, to doubt one’s own free will. Post-cartesian philosophers and, more recently, neuroscientists argue that the resistance to breaking this supposed consubstantiality is a construct borne out of our evolutionary heritage; it would be a response to our need for an illusion of self-control that enables us to believe in our own determination, as well as the possibility of eliminating randomness, chance and coincidence from our lives (Zahavi, 2014; Appourchaux, 2014; de Smet, 2017). However, the universality of this perspective of full self-awareness does not erase the no less universal opposite experience of being “acted upon” by another (socially constructed) consciousness, that of one’s own “disappearance” (Latour, 2012). Needless to say I am not suggesting that we can actually be substituted by a spiritual entity, a ghost or a god. My point is not to say what is real and what is not. Rather, I only want to draw attention to the fact that, among the many ways of “being to the world”, everywhere and beyond everyone’s beliefs or non-beliefs, every single human being is always faced with two main phenomenological

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experiences. On the one hand, there is the idea of experiencing oneself as a free, agentive subject. On the other, there is the opposite experience of not being oneself at all, or not completely, or not all the time. Therefore, the quest for free will is crucial precisely because it is never secured or complete. However, the social sciences tend not to investigate the two phenomenological perspectives symmetrically; they focuse much of their attention on how human beings use free will for its own sake, as if it were simply and always available to them. Therefore, while for practical evolutionary reasons it is easy to see that human beings cannot be constantly in the business of wondering whether it is their own selves acting when they do or say something, the question is important for the social sciences if they wish to grasp something about human beings – particularly since this question lies at the core of all spiritual and religious quests, one of humanity’s most common concerns. Religious experience, in the broad sense, may thus be viewed as one of the domains where human beings are confronted with their own uncertainty, coming face to face with their own absence. In this context, speaking in terms of “well-being” can take on another meaning: it is no longer a question of enjoying, of taking advantage of the present, of stopping suffering and pain, but rather a matter of “true-being”, of obtaining absolute certainty about who is the one doing, thinking and being. At the Spiritist center attended by Lena, there were two main profiles seeking to address the question of goals and motives around well-being. First, there are those who attend because they have identified a form of oppression that they view as coming from outside themselves. Second, there are those who wonder about their own interiority. What the two profiles have in common is that they confront the question of otherness by asking whether it is located within or outside themselves. This is by no means a purely theoretical or philosophical matter. Rather, it is highly practical, experienced in the body. The formers generally attribute their pain or misfortune to an external aggression. Whatever the name given to it, it refers to an otherness that harms the self and comes from the outside. This highly influential pattern of thought is even sometimes termed “witchcraft” (bruxaria), although people generally prefer other terms less closely associated with ancient or exotic superstitions. Yet it is simply a witchcraft mode of thinking, a matter of oppression associated with places, circumstances, events, or people. Many speak of depression, burnout, a feeling of suffocation, emptiness, or loss of energy, again by associating these feelings with devices, workspaces, colleagues, neighbors or families; they also speak of the desire for revenge and even threats, jealousy and negative intentions that they detect in others around them. This public seldom views itself as executioners or as being threatening to others, describing themselves more readily as victims of an entourage and of circumstances. In other words, there is little doubt about the evidence of environmental influences on people’s integrity; it seems to be universally accepted that benevolent or malicious external intentions do affect people, whether or not those people are aware of the flows surrounding them, in their immediate environment. The argument used is ecological: an unhealthy environment has harmful effects on our physiological balance. Everything is therefore a matter of circulating energies, variously affecting individuals, objects, places and even temporalities. This

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underlines just how widespread the witchcraft mode of thought actually is; “un-­ well-­being” is seen as an external aggression, whether originating from the family, work, the neighborhood, the institution, or the State. Difficult mourning’s also fall under this category and clearly account for much of the demand for care in Spiritist centers. Many visitors set out in search of a deceased person whose death they are unable to accept. Over time, the dead establishes and imposes itself to the point of haunting them or of becoming an obsession. On all these points, the Spiritist doctrine confirms the following. It recognizes that each human being is a spirit and, therefore, is constantly surrounded by influences as much as he is himself a generator of influences. The flow of negative influences is called obsessions, while the flow of positive influences is love. Thus, Spiritism suggests that everyone is a spirit (and whether or not that spirit is embodied or disembodied is ultimately not so important) immersed in a “melting-pot” where each spirit influences other spirits. Yet Spiritism also aims, therefore, to empower these spirits by emphasizing that everyone is fully responsible for the energies they produce. In short, Spiritism offers an educational method of conduct for spirits.3 The second group of profiles identified in the Spiritist center is a group that questions their “true inner self” or their “deepest essence”. Lena is one of them. Like many others, she attends conferences because she is seeking for her unknown “self”. What we see here is again a highly pragmatic, almost technical existential question: the aim is to rid oneself of feelings of vagueness rooted in a sense of emptiness, loss, and lack of desire, as if the individual has undergone a disappearance. The Spiritist response to such a kind of dispersal is to discover the self by exercising free will, and the doctrine provides the recipe that Lena is trying to exercise. This is also the case for many young people (post-adolescents aged under thirty) who question their inner turmoil, particularly as a result of a troubled gender and sexual identity. During Spiritism courses and conferences, they raise questions about the process of attributing a body to spirits. But do spirits have a gender? Or is attributing them with either meaningless? What answers does Spiritism provide to the common feeling of inner selflessness, of not feeling like being in the right body? For those who really feel this in their interiority, what they find in Spiritism is an alternative explanation that favors a guilt-free and non-pathological interpretation: besides the great flow of circulatory influences, it recalls the simple substantial essence of the spirit. The assumption, then, is that there is a spirit-substance (whether embodied or disembodied) and the body is only the temporary vehicle for this substance. In short, the “mediumship theory of subjectivity” posits that the “I” may be totally differentiated from the spirit, which remains (more or less) mysterious but perennial. In a sense, each transgender thus becomes a “medium” insofar as, throughout his/ her life, he/she knows the intimate hiatus between the “I” and the “substance”.

 For a comparative view of evangelical Christians and the Holy Spirit and charismatic gifts, see Coleman 2004. 3

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Spiritist discourse on the search for well-being consists in recognizing this hiatus, and not running away from it or hiding it. However, it does not approach it in terms of a gap between the social and the psychic. Spiritism does not accuse society of having given transgender people an identity that is not psychologically the correct one; nor does it accuse the psyche of individuals of having created a gender that is not in harmony with the body. Spiritism gives no approval either to the social or to the psychic function; both occupy only subordinate places. For Spiritism, the real place that matters is the spiritual. It is the only place where everything originates. Therefore, an explanation in terms of the mismatch between the social and the psychic is, according to Spiritism, the response of “science” as a means of not having to face the true spiritual source of all things. Inevitably, it hits the target. For once, people are told that what they are experiencing is not the result of a mental disorder or psychic disability; they are not asked to go through a process of hormonology to affirm the veracity of the hiatus they have been experiencing. In addition, they are not even denied access to God by making them feel guilty for their sins. The explanation becomes a paradoxical circulatory rhetoric that affirms, on the one hand, an ultra Cartesianism of the Ego – according to which each of us has a spiritual substance –, and on the other an extreme relationism – according to which we are all merely a vehicle for consciences in circulation. Ultimately, therefore, human beings are unknowable to themselves, permanent carriers of otherness, yet they still have a substance. This apparent confusion provides another perspective to the question of well-being; it explains the paradox of the simultaneity of the two phenomenological experiences of “being to the world”, i.e confronting people as both agentive and non-agentive.

5 Well-Being Between Depression and Obsession: Vagueness in Subject-Agent Relational Attributions With all these cases, the question of well-being emerges as a challenge related to subject-agent relational attributions. In new spirituality centers, it is often assumed that there is a failure of the sovereignty of the self, at work in the subject-self link ($↔S). This may be due, as in the case of José, to a sense of misuse of the self, which leads to a desire for its substitution by God. Many such examples can be found among the different versions of “mysticist conversions” in contemporary Islam and Christianity (Pons, 2022). It can also be a question of recovering the sovereignty of the self when a malicious otherness has taken over the place of agent: “witchcraft thinking” is active in the case of the obsessed who claim to be victims in Spiritist centers; it is also with those seeking for deliverance rituals in Neo-­ Pentecostal churches (Fancello, 2015); it is even through alternative spiritual techniques such as sophrology, reiki and so on. And, as illustrated by the case of Lena and the young people struggling with their gender and sexual identities, it may be a

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matter of an opposite desire to discover the self when it was supposedly not sufficiently exercised. In contemporary societies, the boundaries between practices and theories in psychotherapy and spiritual therapy are becoming increasingly narrow and blurred. Whether through a lack of engagement with the world (depression) or through a scattered or diluted presence (obsession), the subject “I” loses the support of the agent “self”. Many counseling centers offer well-being therapies to achieve self-­ restoration, with a grey area appearing between psychology and spirituality, variously emphasizing the possibility of the unconscious intrusion of a foreign entity; their contours become thinner as the boundaries between seekers become narrower. It is in fact not possible to make a clear difference between the two groups; they all confront multiple crossovers, toing and froing between the two sides of depression and obsession, with similar symptoms and experiences. Historically, the term “obsession” referred, in Catholic theology, to the sudden and unconscious intrusion of a foreign entity. The field of psychology appropriated this terminology by applying it to phobias and anxieties, while psychoanalysis opted for the term introjection, meaning the ghostly and unconscious internalization of an object, whether good or bad, total or partial, within the individual. There is, however, a subtle but crucial distinction to be made between the work on well-being undertaken in each of the two streams. In the context of medical establishments involved in treating depression, the use of biochemistry (drugs) and speech (psychotherapy) aims to re-establish the normality of a structure in which the agent “self” is sovereign by suggesting that there are blockages at the level of the (psychological) unconscious organization of the individual; the psychotherapist thus seeks to act on the ruptures brought about by trauma. The point is to re-affirm the subject-self relationship as a unique (healthy and viable) structure of the individual; and, if it proves defective, it is on the basis of a principle “of derailment in the mechanics proper”, caused by adverse environments affecting the sovereignty of the self. Therefore, the problem of lack of well-being lies at the level of an internal structure where flaws, faults and blockages have occurred as a result of trigger events. The difference introduced by spiritual care centers concerns the a priori non-­ sovereignty of the self. Unlike the medical approach, even if it is its fundamental challenge, the spiritual approach is far more uncertain and unpredictable with respect to the affirmation and assurance of the reality and presence of the self. If, as we have seen with the various examples discussed above, they often stress a substantialist perspective with the continuity of a spirit, they also affirm the possibility of substitution by another agent replacing the self. More broadly, all spiritual systems are based on a principle of substituting influence. They operate with a varied range along a spectrum between two extreme conceptions of the agent, corresponding on the one hand to the “substance self” seeking to resist at all costs and, on the other, to a “relational self” capable of disappearing altogether. Therefore, in the spiritual realm where the self is not invariable, its substitution can occur for reasons that are not strictly related to the mere internal structure of the individual. Here, it is possible to move from a subject-self relationship ($↔S) to a

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subject-alter relationship ($↔A), without it being abnormal or pathological since all such relations can be simultaneously present, whether active or dormant. To extend the mechanical metaphor, what we see is not a derailment of the subjectself schemata, but rather a passage or transition, or indeed a leap, to another schemata involving a subject-alter link: one stops and the other begins; or both operate simultaneously, sequentially or in turn. However, within this oscillation, and as we saw with the case of José, well-­being – as the ultimate goal to be reached – may sometimes not be necessarily on the side of the subject-self relational attribution. More broadly, this is precisely what happens in prayer, healing, curses and mediumship. Spiritual and religious centers provide help by fully assuming the possibility of obsession; they seek to reactivate the operation of the subject-self relationship by suspending (or controlling) the subject-­alter relationship when it concerns bad spiritual entities. However, with the Holy Spirit, it may also be activated in favor of the charismatic subject-alter relationship (Mossière, 2020). All these well-being processes occur through speech (involving preparation at the level of the psychological authorities) and ethical discipline (based on a strict set of prescriptions and proscriptions serving to govern the individual within a “pure” framework); they also always are supposed to be at the level of a collective relational action, involving both human and non-human entities collaborating “outside” or “beyond” the individual, at the level of an all-­encompassing cosmology, acting on (in) him by “infusion”, “impregnation” and “penetration” of the external intentionalities thus mobilized.

6 Conclusion I have tried to bring out the tension running through the discourses and practices of well-being, not only in the new spiritualities but also, more broadly, in liberal and Western conceptions of the contemporary concept of the subject. This tension involves two contradictory perspectives. On the one hand, we find a perspective that views the self as a substance and sees the achievement of well-being as a realization of this self; this conception is both neo-liberal and founded historically on the epistemological affirmation of the Ego. On the other hand, we find a perspective according to which the self is not assured but runs the risk of being diluted or even of disappearing; this second perspective is often found at the core of spiritual experiences, whether good or evil, as well as psychic crises, pains and distress. These two somewhat contradictory perspectives are not mutually exclusive. On the contrary, the tension arises precisely because of their potential simultaneity and their interconnectedness. This is precisely what we have sought to illustrate with the various cases of José, Lena and the Spiritist centers, showing how the quest for well-being oscillates between various possibilities, with subjects sometimes assuming that they are no longer themselves and (as with some forms of conversion) choosing to be acted upon by the divine. However, in other cases, as with spiritism and mediumship

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dilemmas, there is an attempt to conceal an incessant toing and froing between belief in a self-substance (the spirit) and the negotiation with the various influences (obsessions) that determine it. As noted in the introduction, we may ask to what extent this tension differs from academic theories concerning well-being and subjectivities; in other words, where is the line of demarcation between them? The liberal concept of the subject in the social sciences – insofar as it is a political and moral construction – masks another meaning of the concept firmly consigned to the background. There, in this more dimly lit backstage, the distinction between spiritual interpretations and scholarly theories involves grey areas, blurred or even porous borders. We shall see. The spiritual representations that we have observed point, roughly speaking, to a conception of the subject that is not that far from the conception found in the philosophy of language, in structural psychoanalysis, and in structural anthropology. They attribute the qualities of a personal pronoun to the concept of subject: in other words, the subject is the “I” that thinks, speaks, and acts. It is a conception that can be easily accommodated with mediumship or witchcraft; each individual knows that he is a subject when he thinks, and most of the time he attributes the identity of this subject to himself, that is to say to the “self”. Up to this point, spiritual and scholarly theories agree on the idea that there is a dominant subjective relationship corresponding to the attribution $↔S.  We have seen that it is possible to push the symmetry even further, by establishing that both theories also recognize the possibility of a rupture, or a loss, in the subject-self attributive relationship. Scholarly theories maintain that this happens when abusive mechanisms submit someone to the grip of another (mental manipulation). It also happens when a subject behaves in a way that is too radically extreme and unusual, compelled by his own psyche  – and witnessing a “subject of the unconscious” (Lacan, 1966) – as a second subjective relationship with “another self”. The same may be said of spiritual theories, when they fully accept the possibility of a translation in a relationship from subject-self to subject-alter. In other words, we come to a crucial point where, unexpectedly, spiritual interpretations are not ultimately to be viewed as outliers relative to scholarly theories of subjectivities (Hacking, 1995). However, there is a dividing line between the two – a line that spiritual interpretations cross and that scholarly theories move around. Conceptions of mediumship and witchcraft suggest that a human being can be a support of, or vehicle for, any agent: spiritists sometimes even use the word “consciousness”. Usually, the self – corresponding to current psychic, social and cultural history – is the dominant consciousness. However, a shift to another agent can happen; the “I” who acts and thinks then becomes that of the substitute sorcerer, the obsessive ghost, the poltergeist, or the chief God. As we have seen, curiously it is not here that spiritual interpretations cross the line. The overcoming occurs when the agent is topographically free from the constraints of body’ interiority; that is to say when the consciousness is no longer locked in a psychic interiority, a DNA, or a genealogical history, irremediably linked to an intrinsic substance of the individual. Spiritual interpretations are therefore exteriorizations in the sense that they suggest that consciousness is not locked up anywhere; it has neither a firm nor an

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internalized place but is fluid and circulating through the vehicle of human beings. This is precisely how mediumship becomes “thinkable”, not as a communication tool between the living and the dead, but as a technology for “capturing” what is circulating everywhere, all the time. What supports spiritual interpretations is therefore nothing other than the possibility of a fluidity of subjective attributive relationships, as well as their accumulation, without constraint. Is this principle of the topographical non-constraint of interiority a completely non-negotiable issue for scientific theories? Have scientific theories always refrained from crossing the line? Do they never pass over to the side of spiritual interpretations? It is important to stress that the relational conception of subject-alter relationships is not exclusively specific to contexts that subscribe to the existence of spiritual or divine entities. It can also be found in psychoanalysis; for example with the notion of “introjection” (Ferenczi, 1990) ; more broadly with “transgenerational phantom” or intra-psychic secret or “crypt” (Abraham & Torok, 1987); also in philosophy with “relational laws” (Bitbol, 2010); in anthropology with the idea of an “ecology of life” (Ingold, 2013), or “worldview” (Pina-Cabral, 2014). Ingold returned to the source of the “ecology of mind” (Bateson, 1973). Bateson thought that the mind was immanent to the entire system of relationships between organisms and their environment in which “we”, as human beings, are necessarily “embarked”, in the Heideggerian sense of dasein as always-already-there; it is the idea that “being here” means “always-already thrown” into existence, prior to any decision, before even birth, even prior to or below its origin. In response to the question outlined in the introduction, it is important to reiterate the widely accepted idea in science that the subject-self relationship has never been either modern or exclusive (de Libera, 2007), and that it must therefore be admitted that the “thinking subject” has never been alone. Structural analyzes of language, myths and symbolic forms have never ceased to look for meta-topologies as externalizations of what is permanently circulating. Therefore, it is important to continue asking how the agent of thought can equally be an “I” or a “he” (Lévi-Strauss, 1973) – that is to say, potentially, a separate external agent. This allows us to consider another approach to well-being, that of “acted upon subjectivities”, or what Nietzsche indicated by saying “that a thought presents itself when “it“ wants, and not when” I “want” (1887).

References Abraham, N., & Torok, M. (1987). L’écorce et le noyau (1978). Flammarion. Altglas, V. (2014). From Yoga to Kabbalah. Oxford University Press. Appourchaux, K. (2014). Un nouveau libre arbitre. CNRS éditions. Bateson, G. (1973). Vers une écologie de l’esprit. Seuil. Bitbol, M. (2010). De l’intérieur du monde. Flammarion. Bitbol, M. (2014). La conscience a-t-elle une origine ? Flammarion. Bryant, L., Srnicek, N., & Harman, G. (Eds.). (2011). The speculative turn: Continental materialism and realism. re.press. https://www.re-­press.org/book-­files/OA_Version_Speculative_ Turn_9780980668346.pdf

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Butler, J. (1997). The psychic life of power. Routledge. Cannell, F. (Ed.). (2006). The anthropology of Christianity. Duke University Press. Coleman, D. (2004). The Charismatic gift. Journal of the Royal Anthropological Institute, 10(2), 421–442. de Gaulejac, V. (2009). Qui est “je”? Sociologie clinique du Sujet. Editions du Seuil. de Libera, A. (2007). Archéologie du Sujet I. Naissance du Sujet. Vrin. de Pina-Cabral, J. (2014). World. An anthropological Examination I & II. Hau Journal of Ethnographic Theory, 4(1 & 3). Chicago: The University of Chicago Press. https://haubooks. org/world/ de Smet, F. (2017). Lost Ego. Puf. Derrida, J. (1962). Introduction à la traduction de Husserl. L’Origine de la géométrie. PUF. Descombes, V. (2004). Le complément de sujet. Gallimard. Ehrenberg, A. (1995). L’individu incertain. Calmann-Lévy. Fancello, S. (2015). Penser la sorcellerie en Afrique. Hermann. Ferenczi, S. (1990). Transfert et introjection (1909). Payot. Foucault, M. (2001). L’herméneutique du sujet. Gallimard. Geschiere, P. (2013). Witchcraft, intimacy & trust: Africa in comparison. University of Chicago Press. Hacking, I. (1995). L’âme réécrite. Etude sur la personnalité multiple et les sciences de la mémoire. Les Empêcheurs de penser en rond. Haggard, P. (2017). Sense of agency in the human brain. Nature Reviews Neuroscience, 18, 196–207. Husserl, E. (1989). La Crise des sciences européennes et la phénoménologie transcendantale (1935–1936). Gallimard Tel. Ingold, T. (2013). Marcher avec les dragons. Zones sensibles. Keck, F., Regehr, U., & Walentowitz, S. (2015). Anthropologie, le tournant ontologique en action. Tsantsa, 20, 34–41. Lacan, J. (1966). Ecrits. Seuil. Latour, B. (2012). Enquête sur les modes d’existence. Une anthropologie des Modernes. La Découverte. Lévi-Strauss, C. (1973). Anthropologie structurale II. Plon. Luhrmann, T. (2017). Knowing God. The Cambridge Journal of Anthropology, 35(2), 125–142. Mahmood, S. (2005). Politics of Piety: The islamic revival and the feminist subject. Princeton University Press. Mcintosch, J. (2018). Personhood, self, and individual. Wiley Online Library. https://doi. org/10.1002/9781118924396.wbiea1576 Merleau-Ponty, M. (2001). Psychologie et pédagogie de l’enfant : Cours de Sorbonne 1949–1952. Verdier. Meyer, B. (1999). Translating the devil. Religion and modernity among the Ewe in Ghana. Edinburgh University Press. Mossière, G. (2016). The intimate and the stranger: Approaching the “Muslim question” through the eyes of female converts to Islam. Critical Research on Religion, 4(1), 90–108. Mossière, G. (2020). The anthropology of christianity and the dividual self: Spiritual flows, physical mobility, and embodied callings. Studies in Religion/Sciences Religieuses, 50, 1–21. Nietzsche, F. (1887). Par-delà le bien et le mal (1887). Le Livre de Poche. Pons, C. (2011). Les liaisons surnaturelles. Une anthropologie du médiumnisme dans l’Islande contemporaine. CNRS Editions. Pons, C. (2022). L’origine du mal en temps de crise. Défiance, sorcellerie et conceptions chrétiennes du sujet. Revue des Sciences Sociales, 67, 130–138. Pradeau, J.-F. (2003). Le sujet ancien d’une politique moderne. Sur la subjectivation et l’éthique anciennes dans les Dits et écrits de Michel Foucault. In P.-F. Moreau (Ed.), Lectures de Michel Foucault Volume 3 (pp. 35–51). ENS Editions. Ricœur, P. (1990). Soi-même comme un autre. Seuil.

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Strathern, M. (1988). The gender of the gift: Problems with women and problems with society in Melanesia. University of California Press. Taylor, C. (1990). Sources of the self: The making of the modern identity. Cambridge University Press. Wieviorka, M. (2012). Du concept de sujet à celui de subjectivation/dé-subjectivation. FMSH-WP, 16, 1–15. Zahavi, D. (2014). Self and other: Exploring subjectivity, empathy, and shame. Oxford University Press. Christophe Pons is a social anthropologist at CNRS-IDEMEC (Institut d’ethnologie méditerranéenne, européenne et comparative), France, and Guest scholar at ICS (Instituto de Ciências Sociais), Portugal. He intensively conducted comparative researches on Spiritisms, spiritualisms, Occultisms, Evangelical asceticism and religious pluralism in Northern (Iceland, Faroe Islands) and Southern (Cape Verde, Portugal) Atlantic societies.  

Spirituality, Self-Help, and Subjective Wellbeing Culture Galen Watts

Abstract  A steadily increasing number of Euro-Americans, when asked their religious affiliation, have self-identified as “spiritual but not religious.” My investigations, both theoretical and empirical, have led me to identify a shared cultural structure underlying much of what goes by “spirituality” in late modernity—which I call the religion of the heart. In this chapter I advance a twofold argument: first, that in the wake of what Philip Rieff once referred to as the “triumph of the therapeutic”—that is, the eclipse of the language of biblical religion by that of psychology—talk of “spirituality” has become increasingly intermingled with notions of health, healing, and subjective well-being—such that it is quite difficult to disentangle them. Second, drawing from qualitative research consisting of in-depth interviews with “spiritual but not religious” (SBNR) and neo-Pentecostal Canadian millennials I argue that self-help and humanistic psychological discourses can (and often do) serve to transmit the religion of the heart by secular (or psychological) means. That is, the languages of self-help and humanistic psychology serve to enable a kind of “overlapping consensus,” whereby individuals who subscribe to the religion of the heart translate their metaphysical beliefs into a more secular—and therefore socially acceptable—register. Keywords  Subject · Well-being culture · Spirituality · Humanistic psychology · Self-help · Therapeutic culture Since the 1960s the religious landscape of the West has undergone tectonic shifts. In recent years, we have witnessed a widespread “spiritual turn” (Houtman & Aupers, 2007; Watts, forthcoming), as North Americans and Western Europeans increasingly prefer to self-identify as “spiritual but not religious” (SBNR) (see Lipka & Gecewicz, 2017; Pew Center, 2018). The spiritual turn has puzzled sociologists, G. Watts (*) Centre for Sociological Research, KU Leuven, Leuven, Belgium e-mail: [email protected] © The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2022 G. Mossière (ed.), New Spiritualities and the Cultures of Well-being, Religion, Spirituality and Health: A Social Scientific Approach 6, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-06263-6_3

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provoking widespread debate. Some contend the semantic shift from “religion” to “spirituality” is evidence of secularization, amounting to kind of last gasp of an otherwise dying sacred (Voas, 2009; Bruce, 2017). Others interpret it as heralding a typically late modern, individualized, vicarious and diffuse religion, which lacks any underlying structure or logic (Lyon, 1993; Davie, 1994; Wuthnow, 1998; Huss, 2014). On this view, the religious landscape of late modernity ultimately lacks coherence; “spiritual” individuals supposedly pick and mix from an array of options in the “spiritual supermarket” according to their idiosyncratic preferences (Roof, 1999). My investigations, both theoretical and empirical, have led me to believe both of these views are mistaken. Following in the footsteps of contemporary cultural sociologists such as Dick Houtman and Stef Aupers (2010), and Colin Campbell (2007), among others, I maintain that much of what goes by “spirituality” in late modernity is informed by a distinct cultural structure, which I call the religion of the heart (Watts, 2019). By cultural structure I mean something like a deep meaning system, which gives shape and form to a range of discourses. As I argue at length elsewhere, the religion of the heart, at its most basic, is characterized by an experiential epistemology, an immanent conception of God or the superempirical, and a romantic expressivism that posits the existence of a “true self” and an attendant teleology of self-realization (see Watts, 2020). It follows that, contrary to the pronouncements of recent sociologists—not to mention the self-understanding of most SBNRs—“spirituality” does not lack an underlying logic, but rather entails a clear and unifying one. Moreover, we can find this cultural structure at work in the Romantic, Transcendentalist, Theosophical, and New Thought movements of the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries, evincing the fact that SBNRs are not traditionless, but rather belong to a longstanding religious tradition that paradoxically inculcates in its adherents’ hostility to tradition as such (Watts, 2018b). Yet, while the religion of the heart may have deep roots in the Western tradition, it was not until the 1960s that it moved from the cultural margins into the mainstream. This shift was catalyzed, most conspicuously, by the New Age, Charismatic Christian and Human Potential movements of the period—each of which gave discursive expression to the religion of the heart according to their own lights. In other words, the spiritual turn is largely a byproduct of the success of these three movements in reshaping the religious landscape of late modernity. Much attention has been paid within the study of spirituality to “New Age” thought and practices, such that most scholars agree talk of “spirituality” often signals New Age sources (Heelas, 1996; Hanegraaff, 1996; Watts, 2018a). Similarly, Charismatic Christianity has attracted increased scholarly attention in recent years, as scholars have noted the Charismatic penchant for championing “spirituality” as opposed to “religion” (see Poloma, 2003). However, the Human Potential movement and its offspring have received comparatively little attention within the study of spirituality. Rather, it has primarily been the jurisdiction of scholars interested in self-help, personal development, and therapeutic cultures—which are assumed to belong to the secular, rather than the spiritual (Swan, 2010). The problem with this division of academic labour is that it neglects the historical entanglements of the

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Human Potential movement with the more spiritual New Age and Charismatic Christian movements. That is, it ignores the fact that the ostensibly secular discourses of self-help and humanistic psychology often hold spiritual or religious resonances. In this chapter I advance a twofold argument: first, that in the wake of what Philip Rieff once referred to as the “triumph of the therapeutic”—that is, the eclipse of the language of biblical religion by that of psychology—talk of “spirituality” has become increasingly intermingled with notions of health, healing, and subjective well-being—such that it is quite difficult to disentangle them. Second, drawing from qualitative research consisting of in-depth interviews with “spiritual but not religious” (SBNR) and neo-Pentecostal Canadian millennials, I argue that self-help and humanistic psychological discourses can (and often do) serve to transmit the religion of the heart by secular (or psychological) means. In other words, the languages of self-help and humanistic psychology serve to enable a kind of “overlapping consensus” (Rawls, 1993), whereby individuals who subscribe to the religion of the heart translate their metaphysical beliefs into a more secular—and therefore socially acceptable—register. I begin by outlining my research methods. Next, I demonstrate how the Human Potential movement and its spokespeople have played a pivotal role in giving life to both the culture of subjective wellbeing—and with it, the shift from “religion” to “spirituality.” I then analyze the interview accounts of representative study participants, which respectively illustrate different ways in which self-help discourse can be accorded spiritual and/or religious significance.

1 Research Methods In early 2015 I began conducting qualitative research consisting of in-depth semi-­ structured interviews with Canadian millennials who self-identify as “spiritual but not religious” (SBNR) in both Toronto and Kingston for my doctoral project. My research agenda was to identify what individuals meant when they identified as SBNR.  Interviewees were recruited by multiple means, which included online recruitment notices, email list-servs, posters placed on university campuses, coffee shops, local community centers, and through word of mouth, in both Kingston and Toronto. Most of the interviews took place in person, with the specific location chosen by the interviewee, although some were conducted over Skype. While generally university-educated and for the most part middle-class, my interviewees belonged to a diversity of ethnic, racial, and religious backgrounds. Many were brought up in a religious tradition, although not all of them were. I have interviewed individuals who were raised in traditions as wide ranging as Protestant, Anglican, Catholic, Jewish, Buddhist, Ba’Hai, Hindu, and Muslim, as well as Atheist and Agnostic. In addition to conducting interviews, over the course of 2018, I carried out participant observation at three different sites in downtown Toronto where

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“spirituality,” or what I call the religion of the heart, was institutionalized: a Twelve Step group, a neo-Pentecostal church, and a Toastmasters public speaking club. I chose these sites specifically because each group presented itself differently across what might be called the religious-secular spectrum: the Twelve Step group presented itself as “spiritual but not religious,” the neo-Pentecostal church as “religious,” and the Toastmasters club as “secular.”1 And yet, one finds the same underlying cultural structure at each. Admittedly, this is not self-evident. It took a year of fieldwork to uncover. However, in time I came to see that the metaphysical meaning system implicit in talk of “spirituality” (again, which I call the religion of the heart) is often transmitted not merely through explicitly “spiritual” language, but also through the “secular” language of self-help and humanistic psychology. This became clear after conducting formal interviews with members of these various communities, where it was disclosed that, for many of those who have substantial experience participating in either the holistic milieu or the congregational domain, these secular discourses often carry spiritual or religious meaning.

2 The “Triumph of the Therapeutic” In Self Help, Inc. Micki McGee (2005) traces the history of self-help to the writings of Benjamin Franklin, “the quintessential self-made man” in American lore (31), as well as Ralph Waldo Emerson, whom she argues advocated a “self-culture.” Noting the deeply religious and “spiritual” origins of contemporary self-help McGee argues that Transcendentalism, Mesmerism, Christian Science, and New Thought have each played a decisive role in shaping today’s self-help discourse. She makes the further point that a significant semantic shift took place around the mid-twentieth century: classical self-help literature, which previously spoke in traditionally Christian terms (invoking concepts such as “mission,” “individual calling,” and “vocation”) were translated into the secular register of psychology (invoking concepts such as “self-actualization” and “self-realization”) (McGee, 2005, 40). For instance, in the wake of the 1960s, popular self-help books such as Stephen R. Covey’s The Seven Habits of Highly Effective People and M. Scott Peck’s The Road Less Traveled took biblical and theistic concepts and presented them in “popular secular language” (48), while books like Tony Robbins’s Awaken the Giant Within translated into late modern terms a Christian Science preoccupation with “the power of mind over matter” by “fusing a rhetoric of science with scripture and divine revelation” (60). Philip Rieff (1968) famously referred to this shift as the “triumph of the therapeutic”: “The most congenial climate for the training of the therapeutic has been a waning ascetic culture like that of Protestant America” (54). Rieff argued that one of the defining features of the triumph of the therapeutic is the semantic shift from

 For more on my research process and methods see Watts (2020).

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“sin” to “sickness,” whereby previously moral categories are replaced with seemingly medical ones. No longer, Rieff contends, do individuals seek salvation or enlightenment; instead, they seek subjective wellbeing and self-realization. In Rieff’s account, the triumph of the therapeutic marks a radical break with the past. But others have contended the shift from sin to sickness has been relatively seamless. For instance, historian Robert C. Fuller (2006) writes, “The key to understanding the cultural history of American psychology is thus not assuming that psychology has altered the nature of America’s symbolic universe, but rather trying to understand how it has provided new vehicles for sustaining this symbolic universe” (222). In short, Fuller contends that psychological discourse often carries forward the religion of the heart, or “spirituality,” by secular means. Consider, for example, the figure of William James, and his pivotal role in spurring the triumph of the therapeutic. The son of a follower of Swedish mystic Emmanuel Swedenborg, James sought to articulate his religious yearnings in the academic and seemingly scientific language of pragmatist philosophy and modern psychology. In The Varieties of Religious Experience James posits that there exists an experiential core to religion that underlies all of the various creeds and rituals associated with religious organizations. He thereby offers academic credibility to a key postulate of the religion of the heart. Indeed, James stimulated a shift in academic thought away from belief toward a focus on religious experience, while also ratifying the romantic notion that “spiritual” insight is to be found by going within and exploring one’s inner (psychological) depths. After James, it became difficult to identify the line that separates psychology from “spirituality” (see Taylor, 2002). But this line was made near impossible to detect after the emergence of humanistic psychology and the wider Human Potential movement in the 1960s and 70s (Campbell, 2007, 96). Eschewing traditionally religious terms while receiving ratification from prestigious academic institutions, humanistic psychologists such as Abraham Maslow and Carl Rogers willingly took up the baton passed off by James, thereby extending and popularizing his spiritual legacy. Maslow is perhaps the most well-known of all humanistic psychologists. He described the discipline as the “third force in psychology,” for it would be concerned with “human capacities and potentials [that] have no systematic place either in positivistic or behavioristic theory or in classical psychoanalysis theory, e.g. creativity, love, self, growth, organism, basic need-gratification, self-actualization, higher values, ego-transcendence” (Fuller, 2001, 137). Again, Maslow was responsible for bringing the Jamesian legacy to a wider audience. And he also introduced a number of neologisms that continue to find resonance today: “self-actualization”, “peak experience,” and “transpersonal psychology.” Although James might have paved the way, it was Maslow’s “language [that] facilitated a clear break of ‘spirituality’ from its institutional moorings, and opened the space for spirituality to be seen as a ‘secular’ rather than a ‘religious’ phenomenon” (Carrette & King, 2005, 75). Aside from Maslow, the most influential of humanistic psychologists is Carl Rogers. Raised in a conservative Protestant family, Rogers eventually became

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disillusioned with the Christian faith of his youth and looked to the emerging social sciences for answers to his spiritual questions (Fuller, 2001, 140). Inspired by the writings of Emerson, and extending the line of thought pioneered by James, Rogers became “convinced that we must look for meaning within human experience” (141). He eventually went on to develop what he called “client-centered” or “person-­ centered” therapy—a model that has since been adopted and adapted to fields as diverse as medicine, nursing, education, social work, and business management. This approach to psychotherapy presumes that existent within each and every individual lies an “innate valuing process” that will guide him or her morally. Rogers’ was a spirituality which proposed that when individuals connect with their true selves via therapy well-being will naturally follow. The works of Maslow and Rogers have cumulatively played a formative role in shaping what we might call secular variants of the religion of the heart. By this I mean those discourses which make no explicit reference to the supernatural or the divine, but which nevertheless open themselves to religious interpretations as a result of their deep structures. Their stature as renowned public intellectuals aided the mass adoption of romantic expressivism and its ideal of self-realization, and its absorption into various spheres of social and cultural life (Hanegraaff, 1996, 49). In their wake, “Psychotherapeutic notions of health and wellbeing were conflated with spiritual values of saintliness or goodness, while the Protestant religious imperative to pursue a calling was wedded to notions of mental health and psychological well-­ being” (McGee, 2005, 43). This shift was most clearly exhibited by the Human Potential movement. In his study of participants in the Human Potential movement, Donald Stone (1976) observes, Many participants in transpersonal disciplines say that the word God is not meaningful to them. Those who do relate to the term rarely have an anthropomorphic image in mind. Rather than Father, Lord, or Friend, the image is more likely to be ‘my ground of being, my true nature, the ultimate energy.’ The most common image of God is the notion of cosmic energy as a life force in which all partake. (102)

Fuller (2006) therefore argues, “one of the principal cultural reasons that psychology has so successfully reached wider audiences is its capacity to function as an unchurched source of American spirituality” (224). He remarks, [A]n important factor in the emergence and growth of psychology in the United States has been its continuing resonance with the nation’s popular religious imagination. Many psychological theories have not so much altered the nature of Americans’ unchurched spirituality as they have invented new vehicles for articulating this loose cluster of assumptions about the nature and meaning of life. (Fuller, 2006, 222–223)

Here Fuller is drawing on the insights of Don Browning and Terry Cooper (2004) offered in Religious Thought and the Modern Psychologies. In this masterful book Browning and Cooper persuasively demonstrate that modern psychologies, especially those belonging to the tradition of humanistic psychology, are “actually instances of religio-ethical thinking” (6). By this they mean that humanistic psychologies, contrary to the claims of their secular proponents, “are frequently quasi religions with faith assumptions about the ultimate context of our lives and the goals

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of human fulfillment” (249). While acknowledging that much humanistic psychology “do[es] not provide answer’s to life’s meaning” Browning and Cooper nevertheless argue that it often serves to transmit “concepts and technologies for the ordering of the interior life” (2). Central for these scholars are the “deep metaphors” embedded in particular humanistic psychological frameworks, which they argue circumscribe specific “religious and moral horizons” (7). In other words, concepts like “self-actualization,” “growth,” “energy,” and “flow,” according to Browning and Cooper, are not value-neutral terms, but rather “metaphors of ultimacy” that implicitly “tell us something about the ultimate conditions of the world in which we live” (69). As a result, they argue that the popularity of these concepts should not be understood as the victory of a value-neutral scientific naturalism, but rather as evidence of religious or spiritual transformation.

3 “Spirituality” and Subjective Wellbeing Culture The success of humanistic psychology and the wider Human Potential movement in reshaping the culture of liberal democracies is perhaps most evident in the recent emergence of what Paul Heelas and Linda Woodhead (2005), conducting research in the UK, call “subjective wellbeing culture.” By this they refer to “all those cultural provisions or activities which explicitly dwell on enhancing the quality of subjective-life” (84). That is, subjective wellbeing culture “has to do with the cultivation of ‘good’ feelings, and is ultimately focused on feeling good about oneself” (85). In other words, the romantic expressivism at the core of humanistic psychology and self-help discourse has become a staple of life in post-1960s liberal democracies. Consider, for instance, the importance placed on subjective wellbeing in the spheres of the arts and leisure today. Increasingly, activities within these spheres (e.g., yoga, meditation, therapy, tourism, entertainment, etc.) are justified according to a logic of self-realization and personal growth: as aiding individuals to “find their true selves,” “engage in self-discovery,” “fulfill their potential,” and “achieve self-­ knowledge.” Moreover, we have seen similar changes take place in the spheres of education and medicine, with the humanistic psychological penchant for “person-­ centred learned” and “patient-centred healthcare” rising to prominence. It is for these reasons, among others, that Heelas and Woodhead advance what they call the “subjectivization thesis,” which holds that, as late modern societies give increased cultural primacy to subjective-life, those forms of “spirituality” (e.g., the religion of the heart) which naturalize romantic expressivism are likely to flourish. In other words, according to Heelas and Woodhead, “the subjective-life activities of the holistic milieu are growing because they cater for the subjective turn of the culture” (81). Heelas and Woodhead’s analysis usefully helps us to make sense of the close ties between “spirituality” and the wider subjective wellbeing culture. Indeed, in their view, an interest in “spirituality” and participation in the holistic milieu stems

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primarily from previous engagement with subjective wellbeing culture: “The assumptions and values of subjective wellbeing culture – the importance of subjective life; the positive, ‘can do’ way it is envisaged; the theme of exercising autonomy to develop, express and celebrate who you really are – are writ large in the holistic milieu” (64). However, in their view, the “spiritual” discourses found in the holistic milieu and the humanistic psychological or self-help discourses on offer in the wider subjective wellbeing culture are categorically different. They write, “spirituality is considerably more prominent in the holistic milieu than in much of the more general culture of subjective wellbeing. In many quarters of the more widespread culture, of course, spirituality is not to be found at all (the self-help literature which adopts the psychological frame of reference, for example)” (88). While I agree with Heelas and Woodhead that talk of “spirituality” is far more prominent in the holistic milieu, my data lead me to believe they overestimate the degree of separation between the holistic milieu and the wider subjective wellbeing culture. In other words, the narratives I have collected show that humanistic psychological and self-help discourse often carry forward the religion of the heart, or “spirituality,” by secular means—displaying what Wouter Hanegraaff (1996) refers to as “the psychologizing of religion and sacralizing of psychology” (227). No doubt, this is rarely self-evident. There are certainly times when these secular discourses do not transmit or imply this metaphysical or religious meaning system. But then again, my study participants’ accounts suggest they are not necessarily wholly secular simply by virtue of the presence of a psychological frame of reference. What matters is the specific life history of the individual in question, and the way their past experiences inflect their use of self-help discourse. In what follows I outline three illustrative accounts, drawn from my qualitative research with SBNR and neo-­ Pentecostal Canadian millennials.

4 New Age Self-Help As noted above, the New Age and Human Potential movements developed interdependently, such that their influences and representative figures considerably overlap. It is therefore not surprising that in both movements we find many of the same concepts and preoccupations. For instance, both shared a marked concern with “personal growth” and “healing” (Hanegraaff, 1996, 42). Of course, these notions mean different things to different people. But for those who have been socialized in the holistic milieu, and for whom New Age discourse is intimately familiar, self-­ help and humanistic psychological talk of “healing” often takes on explicitly “spiritual” connotations. I met Ming, 30, while conducting participant observation research at a public speaking club in downtown Toronto. Although the club presented itself as wholly secular or nonreligious, many of the members identified as “spiritual but not religious”—Ming included. During our interview, I learned that Ming, the only child of Chinese immigrants, arrived in Canada in her teens with plenty of familiarity with

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“spirituality.” Her mother and aunt practiced Chi Gong (a system of coordinated movements with roots in Chinese philosophy), regularly visited psychics and spiritual healers, and instilled in her a deep respect for Chinese herbal medicine. Ming recounted, “Looking back, I realize I have always had this spiritual kind of connection. I always knew how to visualize—it’s just kind of an inner knowingness.” Upon arriving in Canada, she found it extremely difficult to adjust to her new home. She experienced culture shock, alienation, and social isolation. Moreover, her parents regularly fought, leaving her with few sources of emotional support. Soon after arriving Ming became anorexic, an eating disorder she struggled with for the next few years. During this period, she delved into both New Age and self-help literatures, regularly reading books by authors such as Deepak Chopra, Eckhart Tolle, Don Miguel Ruiz, Tony Robbins, and Dale Carnegie. She read widely about spirit guides, past life regression, palm-reading, and spiritual healing. Ming also got actively involved in the holistic milieu, taking part in holistic health classes, meditation circles, past-life regression workshops, and the like. Through these experiences, she learned a language with which to make sense of her past. Typical of many SBNRs, Ming described her “spiritual journey” as one of “personal healing,” seamlessly combining the discourses of “spirituality” and self-help. Indeed, given her longstanding engagement in the holistic milieu, during our interview Ming regularly switched back and forth between an explicit “spiritual” or New Age vocabulary and the language of humanistic psychology and self-help. For instance, when she spoke of her experience reading Rhonda Byrne’s The Power she spoke in a secular vocabulary: “It’s all about love. And at that time the book changed my life because all of the pleasing other people, it’s about me lacking love. Like lacking appreciating for myself, lacking compassion for myself, and all this stems from love.” But soon after she moved into a more explicitly spiritual register: “So I learned that I could only be really grounded in love, truth, and compassion. That’s real grounding. You only get the purest energy from the Universe, from God, whatever you call it, Christ energy.” In narrating her life, Ming spoke repeatedly about the “spiritual” significance of healing from her past emotional wounds; psychological and personal growth were couched in explicitly “spiritual” terms. She also framed her “spiritual journey” as guided by a cosmic force: “There is this vast intelligence when you are not in the ego, and are intuitively connected… But it requires a lot of inner strength. So, the mind, your body, your spirit must all come into alignment.” What we see in Ming’s account is the deep intermingling of “spiritual” and self-­ help discourse—the result of the historical entanglements outlined above. Much like Rogers and Maslow before her, Ming sees no contradiction or conflict in adopting secular humanistic or self-help discourse in order to capture the “spiritual.” In fact, it is near impossible to determine where the spiritual shades into the secular in her account. The reason for this is that seemingly secular concepts such as “personal growth,” “healing,” and “fulfilling one’s potential,” are, in Ming’s recounting, signals of “spirituality”—or, as Browning and Cooper put it, metaphors of ultimacy. However, it is noteworthy that Ming’s interest in “spirituality” only became clear upon conducting a formal interview with her. For in meetings at the secular public

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speaking club, she never explicitly invoked “spiritual” discourse, avoiding all references to “God,” “Christ energy,” or “spirituality”—terms she used repeatedly in our one-on-one interview. When asked about this, she responded: “I don’t know if people at the club are comfortable with me talking about ‘spirituality,’ so I use different language there. But when I talk about ‘personal development,’ I am talking about spirituality.” Ming explained that because the club is secular, she avoids explicitly spiritual language so as not to offend anyone. And instead, she employs the language of self-help in order to communicate her “spiritual” convictions to a secular audience—for instance, her fellow public speaking club members. However, in her self-understanding, self-help discourse is not wholly secular, but rather serves to transmit “spirituality.” In this way, Ming’s account vindicates Fuller’s claim that self-help functions as an unchurched source of spirituality.

5 Charismatic Christian Self-Help Margaret Poloma (2003) writes of the Charismatic Christian worldview: “At the center of this distinctive worldview expressed in diverse cultural contexts is a particular ‘core spirituality’” (21). And placing the Charismatic revival in the context of North American culture, she contends, “it reflects not only Christian tradition but also the worldview of the popular New Age subculture” (27). Indeed, it is no coincidence that the New Age and Charismatic Christian movements emerged alongside one another. In many respects, they reflected two discursive faces of the same underlying cultural structure (see Watts, 2020). Yet, as we have seen, alongside these movements came the Human Potential movement, whose “spiritual” dimensions are generally downplayed in academic scholarship. The problem with this is that it obscures the degree to which the spokespeople of these respective movements borrow from one another. For instance, not only does Charismatic Christianity strikingly resemble self-help or humanistic psychological discourse, but Charismatic Christians often interpret secular self-help through their Charismatic lens. Consider Jack, 24, whom I met while conducting participant observation at C3 Toronto, a neo-Pentecostal church located in Toronto’s downtown core. Jack was raised in a conservative evangelical home located in the suburbs on the east end of the city. From a young age, his parents socialized him to accept the bible as the authoritative word of God, and to live his life according to its teachings. Though Jack had a rebellious period in his teens, which led him to question his faith, when I met him he had been attending C3 Toronto for over a year and was deeply committed to his Christian faith. He had just finished a degree in business and was working as a sales rep for a mid-sized retail company. In our interview, Jack was adamant that self-help is, in effect, a secularized gospel. He asserted, “self-help books have Kingdom principles inside of them.” In fact, for Jack, books by the likes of Dale Carnegie, Steven Covey, or Tony Robbins simply “take the bible and just remove Jesus from it.” He explained, “Pretty much all of Dale Carnegie’s books. It’s just Jesus. And ‘unleash the giant within,’ which is just like becoming all you can be.

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Like that would be scripture. Or the power of thinking to change habits. That’s just from the bible.” Importantly, Jack’s claim must be distinguished from the historical analysis outlined above. He is not in agreement with Rieff and McGee that contemporary self-­ help books mark a radical break from traditional Christianity, whereby “sin” is replaced with “sickness.” Rather, in Jack’s view, authentic biblical Christianity is romantic expressivist in nature, and self-help books carry forward this lineage whilst simply ditching explicit reference to “Jesus.” Thus, he explained, “God has gifted us all with this potential—call it personality, gifting, resources, time—and if we waste it…. What are we doing?” In Jack’s view, self-help books can easily be reconciled with the bible since they basically contain the same message. He therefore concluded, “It’s unfortunate that so many people are being helped by the bible, but leaving out the key part—Jesus.” Jack’s account demonstrates the degree to which secular or psychological language can transmit religious meanings when individuals interpret them in light of their past experiences and pre-existing metaphysical beliefs. As a committed Charismatic Christian who attends church regularly, and is actively involved in the life of his congregation, Jack does not interpret self-help books as conflicting with his theological convictions, but rather as providing a secular vehicle through which they are expressed—much as Fuller would predict. While he may regret the fact that these books lack the explicit references to “Jesus” that he thinks are warranted, this does not stop him from interpreting them as fundamentally religious or spiritual. Furthermore, talk of “healing” and “growth” within Charismatic Christian milieus often holds quite similar resonances as it does in more secular or psychological milieus. For instance, consider Anika, 22, a Charismatic Christian who for years struggled with crippling social anxiety. “I was full of fear—fear of my parents, fear of what people think, fear of being judged, fear of so many things.” She described the voice in her head as “the enemy,” sharing that for most of her teens all she could hear was “negative self-talk.” “The enemy was literally trying to prevent me from helping other people and saying what needed to be said.” For Anika, Charismatic Christianity, which has helped her to develop self-esteem, a sense of self-efficacy, and a degree of personal empowerment, has helped her to overcome her social anxiety. “The constant voice in my head—I don’t hear that anymore. God completely healed me of that.” For Anika, as for Jack, personal growth—overcoming psychological barriers, emotional hang-ups, and irrational fears—is a by-­ product of living a faithful and pious life. That is, for her, the quest for healing has been fundamentally religious in nature, thereby blurring the lines between the psychological and the spiritual. Of course, one could argue that rather than serving to transmit religious or spiritual meanings, the appropriation of self-help and psychological discourse on the part of evangelicals like Jack and Anika is, in fact, evidence of secularization (Bruce, 1998). On this view, perhaps the Christian embrace of humanistic psychological discourse reflects a desperate attempt to retain membership in a world characterized by religious decline. While this may well be true, this argument ignores the historical entanglements outlined above—that is, the extent to which these psychological

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discourses carry forward the deep metaphors contained in earlier metaphysical systems. But more importantly, this view is not reflected in the self-understanding of these study participants. As was made clear in interviews, for both Jack and Anika, talk of “personal growth” and “healing” is, with respect to their own lives, decidedly not secular—but rather invokes a Christian version of the religion of the heart, whereby God has helped them to fulfill their potential and realize their true selves. Moreover, they were both adamant that they switch to the language of self-help when in social contexts where their Christian convictions are not widely shared. In other words, much like Ming, Jack saw self-help as a more socially acceptable vernacular through which to communicate religious ideals and concepts—not the other way around.

6 Nonspiritual Self-Help The above cases illustrate the degree to which self-help and humanistic psychological discourses can transmit spiritual or religious meanings by secular means. For Ming, Jack, and Anika, the languages of humanistic psychology and self-help, with their metaphors of “growth,” “self-realization,” and “energy,” entail a spiritual or religious worldview—some version of the religion of the heart. They employ this language as a way of communicating their metaphysical convictions in a more socially acceptable manner. Still, as mentioned above, it would be wrong to suggest that all self-help is interpreted in this way. Sometimes self-help remains wholly secular, interpreted without reference to a background metaphysical picture. For instance, consider Hadley, 28, whom I met while conducting fieldwork at the same public speaking club where I met Ming. Hadley grew up in a small town outside a few hours’ drive from Toronto. She moved to the city to complete a degree in the social sciences, and then a Masters’ in public relations. When we spoke she was working as a freelance copywriter. She explained that she joined the public speaking club because she was interested in “personal development,” and then recounted the following scene: I remember my boss, she asked me to do this presentation at a meeting where there was going to be 50 or 60 people there older than myself. And at the time I thought, ‘Oh my gosh, I can’t do this.’ Because they were way more experienced than me. ‘What do I have to say?’ I really felt uncomfortable. So, I sent her, my boss, back the slides and was like, ‘I’ve done the slides, can you please present instead’? After that, I realized this was really holding me back.

As this quote illustrates, Hadley joined the public speaking club because she saw it as a means to overcome her shyness and social anxiety. “I felt so uncomfortable in the spotlight and I didn’t like that about myself, and I had a lot of anxiety in social situations, and I just wanted to overcome that.” In addition to this, she said she had begun reading a number of self-help books—books which she said have “taught me a lot about myself.” Interestingly, much like Ming, Hadley narrated her life as a journey of self-realization. She said that in recent years she has begun to identify

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those “things that are holding me back, or stopping me from realizing my potential.” Hadley also spoke about “personal healing”: “I guess I’m trying get stronger, become more assertive, more independent.” However, unlike Ming, Hadley lacked experience participating in the holistic milieu. And although she had read a few “spiritual” books, she confessed that they had little impact on her. As a result, Hadley was far less comfortable using explicitly “spiritual” language than Ming, preferring instead the languages of humanistic psychology and self-help. In fact, at no point in our interview did Hadley even mention “spirituality.” Thus, for her, talk of “personal growth” was divorced of any spiritual or religious connotations, entailing a purely secular interpretive framework. Again, I think this can be explained, in large part, due to having very minimal experiences with activities in the holistic milieu. Hadley simply had not been socialized in spaces where the language of “spirituality” is common.

7 Conclusion: Blurring the Religious, Spiritual, and Secular These illustrative examples make clear that, contrary to the claim of Heelas and Woodhead, a psychological frame of reference should not be interpreted as always implying a pure secularity. In many instances, humanistic psychological or self-help discourses serve to transmit expressly spiritual or religious meanings. Indeed, for SBNRs, like Ming, and for Charismatic Christians, like Jack and Annika, the languages of humanistic psychology and self-help enable them to communicate their metaphysical beliefs in a socially acceptable manner to those who may not share their convictions. In other words, self-help makes possible a kind of overlapping consensus in late modernity. It follows then that while the holistic milieu may welcome explicit talk of “spirituality” in a way that subjective wellbeing culture does not, the latter can still—and likely often does—serve to disseminate “spirituality” (or what I call the religion of the heart). This suggests that scholars need to attend to the degree to which seemingly secular spaces and institutions serve as a sites of socialization for “spiritual” discourses and identities (see Bender, 2010). At the same time, this is clearly not always the case. Sometimes humanistic psychological or self-help discourse is interpreted in wholly secular terms. The determining factor is the particular past experiences of socialization individuals bring with them. For those like Ming and Jack, who regularly participate in explicitly spiritual or religious milieus, self-help discourse serves to signal and strengthen their commitment to the religion of the heart. However, among individuals such as Hadley, who have minimal experience with discourses of “spirituality” or participation in the holistic milieu, self-help discourse does not entail a metaphysical meaning system. In sum it would seem that Nancy Ammerman (2014) is correct that, “When people do not have regular sites of interaction where spiritual discourse is a primary lingua franca, they are simply less likely to adopt elements of spirituality in their accounts of who they are and what they do with themselves. If they do not learn the language, it does not shape their way of being in the world” (301).

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References Ammerman, N. T. (2014). Sacred stories, spiritual tribes: Finding religion in everyday life. Oxford University Press. Bender, C. (2010). The new metaphysicals: Spirituality and the American religious imagination. University of Chicago Press. Browning, D.  S., & Cooper, T.  D. (2004). Religious thought and the modern psychologies. Fortress Press. Bruce, S. (1998). The charismatic movement and the secularization thesis. Religion, 28, 223–232. Bruce, S. (2017). The secular beats the spiritual: The westernization of the easternization of the West. Oxford University Press. Campbell, C. (2007). The easternization of the west: A thematic account of cultural change in the modern era. Paradigm Publishers. Carrette, J., & King, R. (2005). Selling spirituality: The silent takeover of religion. Routledge. Davie, G. (1994). Religion in Britain since 1945: Believing without belonging. Blackwell. Fuller, R.  C. (2001). Spiritual but not religious: Understanding unchurched America. Oxford University Press. Fuller, R. C. (2006). American psychology and the religious imagination. Journal of the History of Behavioural Sciences, 42(3), 221–235. Hanegraaff, W. (1996). New age religion and Western culture: Esotericism in the mirror of secular thought. Brill. Heelas, P. (1996). The new age movement: The celebration of the self and the sacralization of modernity. Blackwell. Heelas, P., & Woodhead, L. (2005). The spiritual revolution: Why religion is giving way to spirituality. Blackwell. Houtman, D., & Aupers, S. (2007). The spiritual turn and the decline of tradition: The spread of post-Christian spirituality in 14 Western countries, 1981−2000. Journal for the Scientific Study of Religion, 46(3):305–320. Houtman, D., & Aupers, S. (2010). Religions of modernity: Relocating the sacred to the self and the digital. In D. Houtman & S. Aupers (Eds.), Religions of modernity: Relocating the sacred to the self and the digital (pp. 1–30). Brill. Huss, B. (2014). Spirituality: The emergence of a new cultural category and its challenge to the religious and the secular. Journal of Contemporary Religion, 29(1), 47–60. Lipka, M., & Gecewicz, C. (2017, September 6). More Americans now say they’re spiritual but not religious. Pew Research Center. https://www.pewresearch.org/fact-­tank/2017/09/06/ more-­americans-­now-­say-­theyre-­spiritual-­but-­not-­religious/ Lyon, D. (1993). A bit of a circus: Notes on postmodernity and new age. Religion, 23, 117–126. McGee, M. (2005). Self-Help, Inc.: Makeover culture in american life. Oxford University Press. https://ebookcentral-­proquest-­com.proxy.queensu.ca/lib/queen-­ebooks/ Pew Research Center. (2018, May 29). Being Christian in Western Europe. Pew Research Center. https://www.pewforum.org/2018/05/29/being-­christian-­in-­western-­europe/ Poloma, M. (2003). Main street mystics: The Toronto blessing & reviving pentecostalism. AltaMira Press. Rawls, J. (1993). Political liberalism. Columbia University Press. Rieff, P. (1968). The triumph of the therapeutic: Uses of faith after Freud. University of Chicago Press. Roof, W. C. (1999). Spiritual marketplace: Baby boomers and the remaking of American religion. Princeton University Press. Stone, D. (1976). The human potential movement. In R. N. Bellah & C. Y. Glock (Eds.), The new religious consciousness (pp. 93–115). University of California Press. Swan, E. (2010). Worked up selves: Personal development workers, self work and therapeutic cultures. Palgrave Macmillan. Taylor, C. (2002). Varieties of religion today: William James revisited. Harvard University Press.

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Voas, D. (2009). The rise and fall of fuzzy fidelity in Europe. European Sociological Review, 25(2), 155–168. Watts, G. (2018a). On the politics of self-spirituality: A Canadian case study. Studies in Religion, 47(3), 345–372. Watts, G. (2018b). Missing the forest for the trees: ‘Spiritual’ religion in a secular age. Toronto Journal of Theology, 24(2), 243–255. Watts, G. (2019). Religion, science, and disenchantment. Zygon, 54(4), 1022–1035. Watts, G. (2020). The religion of the heart: ‘Spirituality’ in late modernity. American Journal of Cultural Sociology. Advance Online. Watts, G. (forthcoming). The spiritual turn: The religion of the heart and the making of romantic liberal modernity. Oxford University Press. Wuthnow, R. (1998). After heaven: Spirituality in America since the 1950s. University of California Press. Galen Watts is a Banting Fellow based at KU Leuven’s Centre for Sociological Research. He is also a Visiting Scholar in the Department of Religion at the University of Toronto. His research focuses on religious and cultural change in Western liberal democracies since the 1960s.  

Religious Conversions and New Spiritual Economies Géraldine Mossière

Abstract  In this chapter, I transpose the concept of moral economies into the domain of contemporary spiritualities, building on Fassin and Rudnyckyj. My aim is to understand the production, distribution, circulation and use of existential quests and dynamics as they are embodied in the experiences, practices and operations, exerted by subjects upon themselves as paths of transcendence. Drawing on fieldwork conducted among new Muslims in France and the Canadian province of Quebec, I explore how this economy of the self draws on devices borrowed from popular psychology, thus leading to the psychologization of the religious realm (Altglas V: From Yoga to Kabbalah. Oxford University Press, 2014). I focus on the spiritual economies that contribute to the production of believing subjects, taking as a paradigmatic example the case of converts to Islam who commit themselves to the construction of their own Muslim subjectivity. Following Foucault, I study the “hermeneutics of the self” to which new Muslims commit themselves, and I examine the techniques and ethics underlying this relationship of the self to the self and to others, as well as the operations they carry out to reconfigure subjectivities. I thus introduce new dimensions to the notion of spiritual economy, and specifically to those aspects involving the self, and the organic assemblage and articulation of the subject’s components. I demonstrate how conversions to Islam are part of spiritual economies that revolve around two perspectives: the role of “emotional coaches” who support new Muslims and present themselves as virtuosos and spiritual specialists; and the techniques employed in making spirituality, including tools from popular psychology and personal development. Keywords  Conversions · Islam · Spiritual economies · Psychology · Self · Moralities

G. Mossière (*) Institut d’études religieuses, Université de Montréal, Montréal, QC, Canada e-mail: [email protected] © The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2022 G. Mossière (ed.), New Spiritualities and the Cultures of Well-being, Religion, Spirituality and Health: A Social Scientific Approach 6, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-06263-6_4

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Religious conversions are rarely thought of in terms of spirituality, especially when they involve Islam. Yet, many new Muslims describe their “reversion” to Islam through the spirit of the fitra (their recognition of the ontological condition of submission and abandonment to God), from which they derive a religious endeavor aimed at modifying and improving their lifestyle (Jouili, 2015; Mossière, 2019). This perspective can easily be related to the notion of spirituality as it is understood in this volume. In his class on the hermeneutics of the subject, the philosopher Michel Foucault articulated the two concepts of religion and spirituality by defining the latter as “the practice, the experience by which the subject implements on himself the transformations necessary to have access to the truth” (2001, p.  16). This quest could only be possible by converting the perspective of the subject, a conversion that implies a transformation of the self. In the social sciences, and particularly in recent anthropological studies, the current concern for spiritualities has largely been approached through a critical perspective on neoliberalism. For example, Martikainen and Gauthier (2016) posit that injunctions on autonomy, responsibility, progress and transparency lead to the production of the believing subject, who is assigned to the task of reaching his or her own fulfilment and reflexivity. Likewise, the anthropologist Rudnyckyj (2009) argues that some forms of Islamic practice can converge with the ethical orientations of neoliberalism. In his study of moderate Islamic spiritual reform movements in public and private companies in Indonesia, he shows how work is being reconfigured as an expression of Muslim piety and duty, with an ethic of individual accountability, discipline and self-government that is inculcated in such a way as to be deemed commensurable with neoliberal norms of success and productivity. Rudnyckyj uses the term “spiritual economies” to specify how spirituality is objectified as a site of management and intervention (2009). His perspective calls for a reading of contemporary spiritualities in terms of spiritual economies. The idea of spiritual economies stems from the concept of moral economies introduced by the historian E.P. Thompson in 1971 in his account of the food riots in eighteenth-century England. He defines the concept of moral economies as “a consistent traditional view of social norms and obligations, of the proper economic of several parties within the community, which, taken together, can be said to constitute the moral economy of the poor” (1971, p. 79). The concept allows Thompson to take into account the qualities, values, norms and systems of obligations that guide agents in their assessment of what is good and what is just. The agents in question rely on these values, norms and systems for action in the world, including protest. While the term “spiritual economies” calls into question the relevance of theories of rational choice to explain agents’ behaviors, Thompson gives the term “economy” a heuristic scope that goes beyond the economic realm. The anthropologist Didier Fassin extends the concept to a “moral economy” in order to include the broader “production, distribution, circulation and use of moral feelings, emotions and values, norms and obligations in the social space” (2009, p.  1257). He thus addresses both the contradictions and tensions as well as the negotiations through which social groups are constituted.

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I transpose the concept of moral economies into the domain of contemporary spiritualities by building on the work of both authors. This is part of my exploration of the production, distribution, circulation and use of existential quests and dynamics as they are embodied in the experiences, practices and operations of subjects who exert these forces upon themselves as paths of transcendence. I refer here to the Greek etymology of the term oïkonomia (household management), which designates the way material and immaterial parts of a same system are organized in a common setting. This linguistic interpretation therefore includes a place for the role of affects, moralities and values in the process of the production of the subject. The aim here is to extend the perspective based on the economic (rational choice theory, Iannacone & Stark) and performance work that has dominated the literature. In this way, I include other domains in which spiritual economies manifest, including the intimate, inner monitoring of the self, and the cultivation of well-being, health and personal development. In this chapter, I explore how this economy of the self draws on devices borrowed from a category that might be called “popular psychology” in reference to therapeutic methods that stem from the science of psychology but are implemented beyond their usual clinical context. Such an approach leads to the psychologization of the religious realm (Altglas, 2014). I focus on the spiritual economies that contribute to the production of believing subjects based on the case of converts to Islam who commit themselves to the construction of their own Muslim subjectivity. Drawing on ethnographic fieldwork conducted among new Muslims in France and the Canadian province of Quebec, I engage what I have called, following Foucault, the “hermeneutics of the self” that new Muslims commit themselves to in order to examine the techniques and ethics underlying this relationship of the self to the self and to others. New converts carry out operations to reconfigure subjectivities, which I introduce as a new dimension of the notion of spiritual economy, and specifically those involving the self, the organic assemblage of the convert’s components, and their articulation. I demonstrate how conversions to Islam are part of spiritual economies that revolve around the role of “emotional coaches” who support new Muslims and present themselves as virtuosos and spiritual specialists, and the techniques employed in making spirituality, including tools from popular psychology and personal development.

1 Long-Term Fieldwork Among New Muslims I began my ethnographic research among new Muslims in 2006, when I compared the conversion paths of women in France and Quebec. I collected 78 interviews (38 in Quebec and 40 in France) with practicing Muslim women, whose responses suggested that the meaning they assigned to Islam varied according to the social and political context where their conversions took place, including the presence (or not) of colonial history with the Muslim world. My observations also showed that Islam is appropriated as an idiom and a device for working on and improving the self. For

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example, fasting and praying five times a day were experienced as occasions to discipline and regulate one’s body, mood and desires. The data in this study were collected randomly, but they revealed an age phenomenon, with most respondents under the age of 30 in both countries. The second phase of my research, undertaken between 2014 and 2020 in Quebec, was specifically focused on youths under 30, and addressed the role of Islam in the identification process, sociability practices and social networks of the subjects.1 In both phases of research, I conducted semi-structured interviews with new Muslims with questions that addressed their path toward and within Islam. I also collected their observations of their everyday religious and social activities, such as lessons at the mosque, social gatherings, informal Quranic study circles (halaka) and workshops. One of my key informants offered a workshop on emotional coaching for converts and re-affiliates (Muslims who have not been socialized in Islam through kinship but who have reverted to religious practice), so I registered and attended this event once a week for 6 months. This in-depth fieldwork allowed me to follow the pathway of some new Muslims over the course of more than 10 years, and to witness how emerging and vivid debates surrounding the presence of Islam in Quebec increased the search for help and support within the community among heritage Muslims and new Muslims alike. My long-term observance also provided opportunities for me to identify and meet key figures in local Muslim communities who played a central role for converts, such as figures of support and counsellors. In this chapter, I present my findings from four women whom I identified among the various segments of my findings because they were the most active in accompanying new Muslims on their Islamic path in a non-Muslim context. Whereas it is difficult to claim that this path is reflective of that of the other converts I have met and studied, their significant roles in the spiritual lives of their sisters has leveraged the impact of their own ways of experiencing Islam among their close Muslim community.

2 Psychologizing Religious Practice: Islam as a Way of Interacting in the World My observations of converts to Islam clearly highlight the presence of mentoring practices, as well as networks aimed at supporting new Muslims on their path in and toward Islam by way of associations or key figures. For example, the Association Musulmane Québécoise (AMQ; Quebecois Muslim Association) was created by a convert in the 1980s with the goal of alleviating the social isolation that many new Muslims experience. Although the AMQ was open to all, governance came under

 The project was funded by the SSHRC (2016–2020). The team of research assistants included Isabelle Kostecki, Marie Fally, Catherine de Guise, Ariane Bédard-Provencher, Simon Massicotte, Samuel Victor, Hortense Leclercq-Olhagaray, Sophie Laniel and Marie-Josée Guibault. 1

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the control of converts who modified the name to the Association Musulmane Québécoise des Convertis (AMQC; Quebecois Muslim Association of Converts) in 2018. Along with a variety of social activities such as speed dating and annual dinners, the association offers a program of thematic workshops and mentoring by what they call “godmothers” to accompany converts. In 2015, I attended one of the monthly workshops advertised through the AMQC Facebook page, which was described as a presentation on psychologist Stephen Kapman’s dramatic triangle, introduced in 1968 as part of transactional analysis theory (Karpman, 1968). The workshop was taught by an imam from Morocco, referred to as “doctor” by the participants, whose charisma and religious and scientific knowledge contributed to his reputation as an expert. The AMQ’s Facebook advertisement promised that the “meeting will let you know why you must not fall into the trap of the dramatic triangle”. The dramatic triangle approach frames social interactions as a psychological play through which each protagonist holds either the role of a victim, a persecutor, or a saviour. The adoption of these roles is seen to be a game played by (unconscious) manipulators and therefore an impediment to true communication. During the workshop, awareness of this type of game as it occurs in social interactions was framed and presented as a grid for new Muslims to interpret and manage their social and relationships. This was meant to help them maintain a measured and modest demeanour so they could refrain from expressing overwhelming emotions, especially in the family realm (an especially challenging realm for many converts) (Le Pape et al., 2018). Such activities are not free from tensions and competition in environments with diverse interpretations of Islam, since some Muslims contest the religiously acceptable (halal) dimensions of this knowledge due to its positivist background. During that workshop, some women who came to pray at the mosque were upset that the activity mixed men and women and they criticized the psychology-oriented dimension of the workshop, relating it to Freud and to the theory of evolution. The imam answered, “We take what’s good for us and leave what’s not good for us; it’s like NLP [neuro-linguistic programming].”2 These kinds of workshops introduce new Muslims to psychological theories and tools, which are presented as references to orient everyday concerns and monitor the self in conformity with specific social and ethical norms. Many draw on transactional theories that are associated with a field of psychology developed and popularized in 1958 by the North American psychiatrist Eric Berne. These theories contend that interpersonal relationships are influenced by the position that each agent assumes in social interactions. New Muslims appropriate and interpret these psychological tools within a Muslim framework, in which the construction of the virtuous subject is driven by an ideal of self-control and awareness, thereby psychologizing their experiences of lived Islam in social life. Ultimately, new Muslims assert that  A psychological approach developed in the 1970s at the University of California by John Grinder (linguist), and Richard Bandler (information scientist and mathematician) that identifies and acts upon learned thoughts, language, and patterns of behavior to transform them through experience with the aim to reach specific outcome. 2

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learning how to maintain themselves in a role of moderation and benevolence in social relationships allows them to strive toward the figure of “the good Muslim” and to present a positive image of Islam. The path of Claire, a French research participant, is a helpful example for elucidating this process. Claire was born in 1977 in the South of France. She embraced Islam during her teenage years, based on a friendship with her neighbour and friend from Morocco. We met for three in-person interviews over the course of 12 years. In 2007, Claire was newly married to a man from Algeria whom she had met through the imam of the mosque they both attended. In 2016, she was at home with her young son, but still very active at the mosque where she was in charge of welcoming and guiding new Muslims. During our last meeting, held in 2019, she illuminated her interest in psychological approaches. Claire welcomed me into her cosy apartment, decorated with harmonious colors and mirrors, explaining that she wanted to “bring light” into a place that tended to be dark and cold due to its north-facing orientation. This attention that she gave to her physical environment echoed her will to “act consciously”, something she mentioned repeatedly. As we shared news, she enthusiastically told me about her recent training in Non-Violent Communication (NVC), an opportunity she had long been hoping for to study the method developed by Belgian psychotherapist Thomas d’Ansembourg on the basis of the American clinical psychologist Marshall Rosenberg’s works in 1968. Won about this approach of social relationships, she reported that the first module focused on the self and that “more than often we are far too violent with ourselves”, before proceeding to describe the symbolic devices used to analyze subjective experiences. These include the jackal, which represents the part of the self that causes feelings of guilt if one wants to rest, and which talks or leads a person into doing things that are contrary to need. The giraffe gains height and distance from everyday life, and the turtle goes along according to its own rhythm. Claire was also very interested in the issue of time, noting that “We’re always in a hurry, we always have to answer our texts right away, but me, I need time.” This toolbox for practicing reflexivity draws on d’Ansembourg’s teachings in his best-selling book Cessez d’être gentil, soyez vrai! (Being Genuine: Stop Being Nice, Start Being Real) (2001) as well as on the many seminars he leads all in Western Europe. Providing an example of the role of this method of self-monitoring in her own life, Claire observed that she is not particularly reliable when it comes to social engagements, explaining that (and indeed she did not show up to a few of our meetings) “I’m someone who doesn’t keep her word, but I don’t judge myself. I’m just like that, I’m human. Now that I’m aware of it, I observe and accept that.” She emphasized the centrality of sincerity and truth in human relationships, stating that they open door to communication with other people: “If I say to someone, ‘Listen, today I’m not in good shape, I didn’t sleep well’, you wouldn’t believe how it gets people to listen. They will take a little more care with me. But I have to speak from the heart, I’m really not trying to be manipulative”. When I mentioned other transactional tools, she criticized some of the NLP techniques that she learned during professional sales training: “‘Manipulating in order to sell’, that doesn’t do it for me. I’m not a manipulator, I’ve never been able to do NLP.” Regarding the Kapman

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triangle, she said she loved the model but worried that “people are always in one of these three roles.” Claire seemed to share many of these alternative techniques and approaches with her mother, a Muslim believer who also entertains Buddhist practices and meditation. Yet, our conversation took a new direction when I invoked the experiences of another respondent. This other research participant had decided to stop drawing on these techniques because she said that they eventually caused her to pay too much attention to the self instead of leaving room for relying on God and prayer. Claire built on this idea: “Surely, yes, God is the basis. He’s everything. Besides, I’m integrating all these techniques into my faith. […] See, me, I don’t need all these meditation techniques. Me, my prayer, my contemplation, my meditation, I have all this in my prayer with my God.” Self-monitoring tools were perceived by Claire as useful for managing challenges related to the education of her son, or tensions arising from the mixed cultural aspects of her marriage. She suggested that they also helped her to negotiate comments and reactions regarding her religious identity from her immediate family (especially her father and mother-in-law) and from the public. Likewise, these tools helped her to maintain her presentation of a good image of Islam (duty of da’wa) in spite of the adversity she encountered in her environment. Leveraging these tools for the benefit of new Muslims at the mosque, Claire now uses them in individualized coaching and in the group workshops that she organizes on Sunday mornings. Specifically, she draws on the NVC method to teach new converts how to deal with their parents’ hostility, emphasizing that negative reactions express their families’ concern and love for them and that they should remember the Islamic rule of respect for parents: “I tell them, ‘You are not the defender of Islam in your family, you are the defender of the bonds of brotherhood, of family bonds’. I tell them, ‘Me, my father, when I get up from the table and I just have to pee and he says ‘You get up to go bang your head on the ground [in prayer] for a God that does not exist.’ I turn around and I say, ‘No, I’m just going to pee daddy’, with a smile.” Claire’s case exemplifies the role many converts play for each other and the process of emulation that governs new Muslims’ learning experiences. Embracing Islam is a long and demanding path, and converts are more prone to learn the tenets, practices and proper behavior under the supervision of figures who act as supporters and models for them. Converts attribute social and human capital to the values, morals and wisdom that their behavior manifests. These support figures are usually older, pious women or educated sisters who teach Quranic study circles. The emergence of these figures in contemporary Islam is part of a quantifiable movement of self-proclaimed “authorities” who are recognized by believers. Since Sunni Muslims shape their behavior according to the model of the Prophet Muhammad, neophytes are taught how to master and discipline the self by constantly checking their personal emotions, thoughts and actions. Muslims find useful tools in psychological resources for conducting this hermeneutics of the self, which they also call a “jihad on the self” (Mossière, 2012, p. 5). The public popularity and accessibility of these psychological resources grew out of the emerging success of psychanalysis, therapeutic methods and the “new therapies” of the 1960s, with Abraham Maslow (1943) and Carl Rogers (1942) as leading figures. Now better known under the heading

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“personal development”, the ongoing success of these practices has been driven by both the neoliberal imperative to “lead a good life” and the contemporary promotion of a culture of well-being. This work on the self is mediated by accompanying figures like Claire who closely and informally follow new Muslims through personal consultations or workshops. In Quebec, I have found that some of these figures are institutionalized with the designation of “emotional coach” who are trained in accredited agencies and schools.

3 Institutionalizing Emotional Coaching: Training Muslim Support Figures Most of the active support figures for new Muslims I met in Quebec had taken the 1-year training program offered by the Académie Excel Coaching agency. Sophie, the leader of the agency, is a middle-aged Quebecois woman who reverted to Islam when she was 20 and later married a Muslim from Morocco with whom she has three teenaged children. She remembers that when she discovered Islam, “It was the fulfilment of who I was”. Since she defines herself as an activist, her profile corresponds to that of the typical converts that I describe as seekers, justice-lovers and enthusiasts. Advocating a feminist approach to Islam, she wants to stand out from the Salafi way, and reports that she has been disappointed with the kind of Islam (which supposedly mixes religion and culture) that is practiced by many Muslims. She explains that she felt “relieved” when she discovered the message of Tariq Ramadan, a Muslim thinker and public intellectual, whom she views as more moderate. Her discourse suggests that she considers Islam as a method for freeing oneself from needing the human other as a precondition for a return of the self to the Other, in terms of acknowledging one’s reliance on God. Sophie’s family pioneered the practice of behavioral psychology in Quebec. Her aunt, Diane Borgia, a criminologist and psychotherapist, wrote the Little Dictionary of Happiness (2012) and Toxic Love (2016), and her mother created Académie Excel Coaching agency in 1997 after training in emotive-rational therapy techniques established by the American psychologist Albert Ellis, one of the leading figures in behavioral and cognitive therapies. Sophie assumed leadership of the agency when her mother retired. Académie Excel Coaching has the status of a private educational institution. Both the provincial and federal governments recognize its role in developing skills through continuing education and its right to grant professional diplomas. Excel’s coaching philosophy draws on behavioral approaches to focus on the monitoring of emotions, with the assumption that cognitive and behavioral change allows individuals (regardless of whether they may be affected by mental illness or addiction) to take control of their lives in order to regain emotional and affective autonomy, to flourish and to lead a more balanced and happy life. From there follows the theory of emotional intelligence (Goleman, 1995) and rational-­ emotional therapy (Ellis & Dryden, 1996) that diverge from psychoanalysis to

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promote an active and directive-relational type of therapy. Relational therapy requires the therapist to help patients to understand—and to act upon this understanding—that their personal perspectives contain beliefs that are the source of their emotional suffering. Ancient Stoic philosopher Epictetus (50–135) is highly influential in this approach. He stated that, “Men are disturbed, not by things, but by the principles and notions which they form concerning things” (The Enrichdion, 135 BC3). Académie Excel Coaching promotes the concept that no person or thing can be responsible for one’s emotions, because emotions hinge on personal analysis and interpretation of the situation being experienced. This is why working on ideas allows for an improved management of emotions, which in turn leads to more appropriate reactions and behaviors. Sophie’s mother summed up this idea in the mnemonic acronym OIERC, which states that events and situations are Opportunities to Interpret according to one’s beliefs, thoughts and upbringing, causing Emotion which results in a Reaction and Consequences that may either be appropriate or inappropriate. For Muslim believers, the aim is to adjust emotions and reactions in relation to behaviors that are valued in Islam (modesty, moderation, control) and are therefore appropriate in social relationships as well as in the public sphere. As noted above, the title of “emotional coach” is awarded to those who complete this training. Coaches then accompany and support individuals and groups who consult them. Emotional coaching emphasizes the importance of relationships as support mechanisms as much as the primary parts of social experiences, but it is a person’s intimate emotions that must be worked on and framed within specific normative guidelines. The aim of the coaches is to transmit the necessary tools so people may work on their relationships by supervising their emotions, and therefore their interiority. Académie Excel Coaching does not specifically target religious practitioners, but Sophie’s personal network has attracted many Muslims to this program. Transmission and embodiment of Islam through emotional coaching mainly revolves around emulation and control processes, in which coaches place emphasis on teaching the emotive-­rational tools for displaying appropriate reactions as “good Muslims”, rather than on judging religious fellows. This form of indirect mutual control based on comparison aims at bettering the self by psychologizing one’s social life and religious path. Muslim emotional coaches are mostly pious and educated women who are converts or re-affiliates. Some wish to pursue professional careers as emotional coaches whereas others just want to add emotional coaching to their toolbox as Muslim practitioners and to accompany their sisters as volunteers. All see this as a resource that can be used to support their duty to spread Islam (da’wa), including among Muslims, a pursuit for which they will be rewarded in the afterlife. The spread of emotional coaching among new Muslims in Quebec is based on the leverage effect of the rhizomic structure of the Muslim community: Sophie trains coaches in her agency, and certified Muslim coaches train new coaches themselves. This structure

 http://classics.mit.edu/Epictetus/epicench.html [consulted March, 21st, 2022].

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forms the basis of a movement toward the institutionalization of the psychologization of religious life through the mutual teaching of the basic rules of emotive-­ rational therapies.

4 Appropriating Rational Emotional Tools: Shaping “The Good Muslim” Appropriation of emotive-rational methods by new Muslims takes many forms and involves a range of Islamic references. I will illustrate this here by presenting the profiles of two certified emotional coaches from Quebec. Nathalie is 53 at the moment of the interview and she embraced Islam when she was 35. She is married to a Muslim from Algeria, whose religious practice has intensified since they met; Nathalie is now veiled. She graduated with a university degree in architecture but lost her job when the field became computerized and outpaced her skills, an event which represents a major turn in her life. As an active member of the AMQ, she is committed to the association’s social life, and is involved with mosques and Muslim student associations that offer halaka, through which she is granted a certain social and symbolic prestige due to her level of education. After her career in architecture came to an abrupt end, Nathalie took a class in psychotherapy and started to work as a life coach, running individual and group sessions. When I met her for the second time in 2017, she was conducting a weekly Saturday-morning counselling and relationship support group geared towards the Muslim community. In this capacity, she combined the teachings of Islam with techniques in relationship support. She also organized a ten-session workshop, hosted in a mosque, to teach the principles of emotional coaching, which I attended on Saturday afternoons. Nathalie prepared a detailed booklet to initiate participants into the OEIRC method. Most were women seeking advice and a space to talk about issues related to relationships with in-laws or spouses, or to children’s education in a non-Muslim environment. Nathalie considers Islam and the helping relationships workshops she conducts as a mission that allows her to fulfil her dreams of motherhood. Her own dreams of starting a family were dampened by three miscarriages, constituting another major personal crisis in her life. In addition to the fact that she is not of Algerian heritage, her infertility has led to such a tense relationship with her in-laws that her marriage has nearly come to an end several times. When I met Nathalie 10 years after our initial contact, I observed that she was still a practicing Muslim, yet she hardly mentioned the role of Islam in her everyday experiences or work as a coach. I interpreted this as an indication that these involvements were fully integrated into her life’s mission. For example, she only specified how Muslim practices contributed to participants’ well-being when I asked her directly; otherwise, she portrayed her workshops in a personal development framework, with Islam as a patent way of being.

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Nathalie’s emotional coaching style, which can be described as merely being anchored in Islam, differs in many ways from the case of Zara, another woman I met during this workshop. Indeed, Zara’s approach involves an in-depth interpretation of Islam from within a psychological framework. Zara’s endeavor to embody Muslim virtue and piety exemplifies how the project to produce the self as a good Muslim is enmeshed with individual monitoring through emotional coaching. As Zara tries to model her religious behavior upon emotive-rational language, she exemplifies the process of psychologization of the religious self through a personal appropriation of her religion. This new type of control of the self echoes the current neoliberal paradigm and operates within the narrative models based on a Muslim ethos that Zara calls the “jihad an nafs”, the struggle with the self. Yet, her everyday experiences of Islam also combine many personal development teachings stemming from the authors of New Age movements. Zara has been living in Montreal since 1998, when she arrived from Algiers, Algeria. She is married with two teenagers. Zara worked as a physiotherapist in a clinic in Montreal, but she quit her job in 2010, became self-employed, and started her 3-year-emotional coaching program at Académie Excel Coaching. She graduated in 2017. She was 49 years old in 2018, when we met in Nathalie’s workshop. At that time, Zara presented her perspective on emotional coaching. Her migration to Quebec heavily disrupted her life path, as did the deaths of her two parents in 2010 and 2013. It was in Quebec that she re-affiliated with Islam, and she has been veiling since 2004, proudly asserting that “the Qur’an is my antidepressant”. She likes to emphasize that she did not visit mosques in Algeria, considering them more suited for people of a “higher spiritual level”. Yet, when she entered a mosque in Quebec, she realized that “these are real people, they have the same problems as people outside”. She now describes the type of Islam she practices as the “true Islam. It is itself, it is connected, with others and with nature” and she portrays herself as a “Muslim without constraints, free.” For her final term project at Académie Excel Coaching, Zara decided to apply the OIERC method to her Muslim practice by addressing the following issue: As a Muslim, I am asked to fight my ego and not let my passions drive me. But how can I conduct this fight when I am constantly influenced by what surrounds me, like the media or people around me? How can I be sure I haven’t melted into the mould before I realize it?

To address this question, Zara built on the notion of jihad an nafs within a particular behavioral framework. Her presentation depicted how she appropriates Islamic references, demonstrated with the complex Arabic term nafs, which can be translated not only as “self”, but also as “me”, “ego”, “person”, “heart”, “mind”, or “spirit”. Relating her project back to the ego and the struggle against the self, she shared a supposed quote from the Prophet Muhammad: “The true fighter is one who fights with himself, who leads an inner, spiritual struggle for perfection in the way of God.” For Zara, “the purpose of jihad is to get closer to God by trying to cleanse one’s heart of any dark stain that might stick to it. This jihad can only be carried out by becoming aware of our inner dialogue, which is often unrealistic because of preconceived ideas from our education and our environment.” Considering that evil

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resides within one’s self, God must be called upon for protection in order to triumph not over one’s enemy, but over one’s own ego. In her session work, Zara built an anthropological definition of the human in which the nafs was produced by a subtle balance between the head and the heart, the purification of the soul, and the reconnection with the ontological definition of the human as a being who surrendered to God (fitra). Zara stated that, in the image of Adam, the first man created from the conjunction of earth and divine breath, life becomes the fusion of the soul and the body. These are the two facets of the human being. Like children, who are seen as naturally sane, each individual is born in a state of purity. Therefore, it is the duty of all humans to continue to purify their hearts in order to remain in this state of fitra. This should lead believers to the following question: “What might push me away from the fitra?”. Zara contends that the answer lies in the heart, which strives for a balance between the spiritual and the earthly. Meanwhile, working on this balance is a perpetual quest that characterizes what it means to be human. The state of the heart is all the more important since it governs the condition of the human ego. According to Zara, ego/nafs is a central issue for believers in that it is the site where free will lies, so nafs will represent itself before God on the last day of judgment. Depending on the balance that the heart has reached between the spiritual and earthly realms, nafs can occupy one of three forms revealed in the Qu’ran: the instigator of evil who knows no rules and acts impulsively (Nafs Al Amara Bissu); the highly critical ego who always lays out blame and questions after any action, whether good or bad, and is in a perpetual state of conflict with itself (Nafs Luwama); and the soothed ego that has regained stability, balance, and the center (Nafs Mutmaina), referenced in the Qur’anic passage, “O peaceful soul, return to your Lord.” (89:27–28) Interestingly, Zara considers that it is work on the self through OIERC that makes it possible for the heart to reach balance, leading towards the purity with which each individual is born. For example, Nafs Al Amara could evolve into a higher degree of soul if it would question itself in order to “assume its [own] responsibilities” without transferring them to others, as is the goal of OIERC. Likewise, the practice of OIERC can help the person caught in the Nafs Luwama state to reach more awareness, which would allow for better monitoring of emotions. OIERC allows practitioners to work on behaviors that unfold in these three categories of nafs: revenge, disparagement and contempt (as opposed to good intention); anger and subversion (as opposed to patience); fear and apprehension (as opposed to serenity); ostentation (as opposed to sincerity); procrastination and despondency (as opposed to confidence, as only God is in control); greed (as opposed to empathy); and pretentiousness (as opposed to modesty). Zara’s personal interpretation of Islam thus combines behavioral psychology with a variety of personal development techniques, which she gathers on the Internet and from YouTube videos. These online sources feature figures like American writer Louise Hay, the author of many books on personal development (1984, 2004). Zara reports that, after a hard day, she likes to relax on her sofa with headphones to listen to Hay’s positive thoughts. Zara also watches Internet videos of Muslim televangelists like Egyptian preacher Mustafa Hosny. Hosny holds a bachelor of arts degree

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in commerce and has undertaken training in Islamic studies. He is very active on social media where he reaches global audience and broaches topics like relationships and living the present moment. Zara insists on distancing her views on Islam from formal schools of Islamic thought, and instead portrays her lived experience of Islam, which reveals flexibility, non-violence and non-coercion, as the true Islamic faith. Zara’s case sheds light on the new avenues that psychology offers for Muslim practice. This process involves a recentering of Islam as a form of piety and virtuous behavior that is in conformity with a rational grid designed to screen emotions as way to orient believers’ mode of being and interacting in the world. In this innovative scheme, Islamic tenets are rephrased in psychological narratives and semantics. Jihad an nafs is interpreted as a process of struggling with and fashioning the self along with the popular personal development scheme. It would be easy to interpret this case through Beck’s theory of individualization in the context of reflexive modernity, in which “the choosing, deciding, shaping human being who aspires to be the author of his or her own life, the creator of an individual identity, is the central character of our time.” (Beck & Beck-Gernsheim, 2002, pp.  22–3). Indeed, Zara’s reflexive and voluntary path as a Muslim stems from her awareness that her relationship to God relies on her own empowerment: “I have a choice, Allah has given me free will.” Yet, Beck & al. equally argue that the dis-embedding of collective habitus also goes hand in hand with the re-embedding of the individuals in new regulatory frameworks. In the case of Zara indeed, free will re-embeddes everyday life within a specifically Islamic order and a structure that entails a set of duties and responsibilities, it therefore  may only occur as believers become aware of their internal narratives. Such a narrative is fueled by the supposed particularities of one’s cultural background or family education, and sometimes by the social contempt that some Muslims experience in societies where they are a minority. Zara and her peers made it clear in our discussions that they are not falling into the trap of victimization, but rather aim “to take [virtuous] actions.” In some way, following Beck and Beck-Gernsheim’s frame, Zara imports these Muslim regulations on the self “into [her own] biography through [her] own actions” (2002, p. 2). Believers are driven in this task by their understanding of the promise of divine reward for presenting a good image of Muslim-ness to the world. This constant concern to engage with and discern the state of their nafs inside their own interiority features as one of the main conditions of contemporary subjectivities (Bouveresse, 1976), but it also positions the subject as a neoliberal entrepreneur of his or her own life and achievement. This reveals the precarious condition of the free, modern individual and what philosopher Alan Ehrenberg labelled “the fatigue of being oneself”, with depression as a contemporary category of mental disorder (1998). Whereas subjects may use psychological resources as a way to cope with the deleterious impacts of neoliberal demands on the self, the psychological device paradoxically returns the burden to the subject’s shoulders. Introducing emotional coaches to this vicious and taxing circle turns the individual condition into a relational one as much as it shifts the experience of the subject into a co-presence in the world. For example, after Zara graduated from the

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Académie Excel program, she transformed her work into a booklet that she uses to teach workshops and individual sessions on emotional coaching. Her professional activity has gradually moved toward coaching and volunteer teaching of coaching workshops. Her benevolence follows from her mission to earn good deeds in Islam by spreading “the word” as well as a positive image of Islam in preparation for the day of her judgment before God. This intention clearly guides the content of her workshops where I observed a strong willingness to avoid judgments, criticism and slander based on her own interpretations of the Quran. Viewing one’s way of being in the world through the lens of Muslim virtue then makes the experience of Islam more relational. Personal relationships become a support system on the path to piety (by way of emotional coaching), as well as a challenge in the embodiment of virtue (through social life). This double dimension of religion situates the believer on a vertical plane rising towards God, on the one hand, and on a horizontal plane communing with social peers on the other. Mobilizing psychological devices to work on both dimensions of religion reconfigures the frame of identity and belonging so that it centers around moralities that overcome the very need for social belonging, all the while remaining normative. As Zara explains: “I am so sad to see that Muslims do not know their own religion. They think in terms of halal/haram [proscribed], but not in relational terms. But there are people who are not religious but share the same values.”

5 Conclusion In this chapter, I have presented the pathways taken by new Muslims and emotional coaches as a case study through which to examine the ways in which religiosity unfolds in the immanent world and in the personal and social facets of the subjective experience. These behaviors revolve around the individualized interpretation of resources that stem from emotive-rational therapeutic techniques, with the aim of monitoring the self. Placing emphasis on their subjectivity and reflexivity, these believers psychologize the governance of the self so they may fashion themselves as virtuous subjects who lean toward proper Islamic behaviors. As these techniques are tested by the everyday challenges of social relationships, the subjects turn religion into a way of being with the self and with others. This idea that religiosity can be worked on through social relationships matches Simmel’s definition of spirituality presented in the introduction of this volume. Thus, social relationships are experienced as ongoing reflections of the state of the subject’s own interiority. The definition of the human being that celebrates the self draws on Charles Taylor’s perspective on the subject as a substance that can be modelled (1992). As Muslim emotional coaches, both certified and self-trained, frame this approach to their own interpretations of Islam, they introduce a form of dissociation from the self. This has the aim of discriminating between corrupted and virtuous nafs/egos and ultimately reorients toward the virtuous (and concealed) one. Because this process is paved with doubts and hesitation, emotional coaches take on the mission of

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supporting their fellow new believers as part of the da’wa. The role of these coaches is therefore twofold. First, coaches should portray themselves in the guise of “good Muslims” who are models to emulate, because they engage in the art of controlling the self (without ever mastering it). Secondly, they should transmit techniques for appropriately embodying Islam via the virtuous control of emotions in their social lives, which, especially for converts and spouses in multicultural marriages, may be fraught. It is worth noting the role of converts in the construction of this understanding of Islam, since nearly all of the converts I met insisted on distancing themselves from any specific, formal school of Muslim thought. Instead, they advocated for “true Islam” (a-dine a-sahih), framed as a universal version of Islam deprived of any cultural and local interpretations. The emergence of emotional coaching among converts is not foreign to their view of Islam as an ethics of the self that is reflected in the virtuous normativity of their way of being and interacting in the world. The methods that the emotional coaches I have met offer to new Muslims are not specific to Islam. For example, Christian churches often provide pastoral agents or evangelists to new believers on their way toward baptism, they also offer tools for work on spiritual deliverance. The central role of such psychologically-­couched religious mediation exemplifies one of the impacts of the neoliberal condition of contemporary spirituality. In this setting,  actors like the Muslim women in my study strive to monitor the self through social experiences in order to experiment with their own existential paths and quest for transcendence in a world where they are encumbered with concerns for rationality and virtue.

References Altglas, V. (2014). From Yoga to Kabbalah. Oxford University Press. Beck, U., & Beck-Gernsheim, E. (2002). Individualization: Institutionalised individualism and its social and political consequences. Sage. Bouveresse, J. (1976). Le mythe de l’intériorité. Éditions de Minuit. D’Ansembourg, T. (2001). Cessez d’être gentil, soyez vrai ! Éditions de l’Homme. Ehrenberg, A. (1998). La fatigue d’être soi: Dépression et société. Odile Jacob. Ellis, A., & Dryden, W. (1996). The practice of rational emotive behavior therapy. Springer. Fassin, D. (2009). Les économies morales revisitées. Éditions de l’EHESS, Annales. Histoire, Sciences Sociales, 6, 1237–1266. Foucault, M. (2001). L’herméneutique du sujet. Gallimard. Goleman, D. (1995). Emotional intelligence: Why it can matter more than IQ. Bantam Books. Hay, L. (1984). You can heal your life. Hay House Inc. Hay, L. (2004). Everyday positive thinking. Hay House Inc. Jouili, J. S. (2015). Pious practice and secular constraints: Women in the Islamic revival in Europe. Stanford University Press. Karpman, S.  B. (1968). Fairy tales and script drama analysis. Transactional Analysis Bulletin, 7(26), 39–43. Le Pape, L., Laakili, M., & Mossière, G. (2018). Converting to Islam in France: In between original bonds and new communities of faith. Ethnologie française \https://www.cairn-int.info/ Martikainen, T., & Gauthier, F. (2016). Religion in the neoliberal age: Political economy and modes of governance. Routledge.

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Maslow, A. H. (1943). A theory of human motivation. In Psychological Review, 50(4), 430–437. Mossière, G. (2012). Être et « vouloir être » : la conversion comme voie d’herméneutique du soi. Théorèmes, 3. http://theoremes.revues.org/359 Mossière, G. (2019). Religious orthodoxy, empowerment, and virtuous femininity among pious women: A cross-religious reading between Muslim and Pentecostal youth. In E.  Arweck & H. Shipley (Eds.), Young people and the diversity of (non)religious identities in international perspective (pp. 203–220). Springer. Rogers, C. (1942). Counselling and psychotherapy. Houghton Mifflin Co. Rudnyckyj, D. (2009). Spiritual economies: Islam and neoliberalism in contemporary Indonesia. Cultural Anthropology, 4(1), 104–141. Taylor, C. (1992). Sources of the self. The making of the modern identity. Harvard University Press. Thompson, E. P. (1971). The moral economy of the english crowd in the eighteenth century. Past & Present, 50, 76–136. Géraldine Mossière is an anthropologist and associate professor at the Université de Montreal’s Institute of Religious Studies. She has published more than 50 scholarly books, book chapters and articles that address contemporary religiosities, including religious diversity in secular societies and the articulation between spirituality and health. She examines the diverse dimensions of religious conversion (transnationality, interethnic and intergenerational dynamics) as well as (non)believing contemporary subjectivities (spirituality, healing, neoliberalism). She is the author of Converties à l’islam. Parcours de femmes en France et au Québec (Presses de l’Université de Montréal, 2013).  

Smudging, Yoga and Ethical Veganism: Exploring the Boundaries of Religious and Spiritual Practice in Law Lori G. Beaman and Lauren Strumos

Abstract  This chapter explores how law constructs the boundaries around religion, spirituality and culture by examining three cases: Servatius v. Alberni School District No. 70, which focuses on a parent’s objection to an Indigenous smudging presentation at her children’s elementary school in British Columbia, Canada; Sedlock v. Baird, which involves parental objections to a yoga curriculum in a Californian elementary school district; and the preliminary hearing decision for Casamitjana v. The League Against Cruel Sport, in which a United Kingdom employment tribunal concludes that ethical veganism qualifies for protection as a philosophical belief under anti-discrimination law. Using these cases, this chapter shows how notions of individual and collective well-being appear in law as it adjudicates the boundaries of religion, spirituality and culture. These notions are shaped by the legal frameworks in which they appear as well as their social and national contexts. This chapter employs a capacious conceptualization of well-being to demonstrate its variance in law, including how it becomes tied to broader articulations of the good society. Keywords  Religion · Spirituality · Culture · Law · Well-being · Good society The religious landscape in western societies is changing rapidly. There is a decline of institutional religion in certain contexts and an increased visibility of other forms of religion, nonreligion and spirituality in others. As a consequence, a new diversity is emerging that increasingly requires a recalibration of conceptualizations, boundaries and hierarchies. In addition to more traditional forms of religion, the law is being called upon to adjudicate the boundaries of spirituality, conscience and culture, particularly in the public sphere. One of the core preoccupations of public law is well-being, which can be conceptualized at the individual level (a threat to individual rights and personal well-being); at the group level (a threat to a way of life L. G. Beaman (*) · L. Strumos Department of Classics and Religious Studies, University of Ottawa, Ottawa, Canada e-mail: [email protected]; [email protected] © The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2022 G. Mossière (ed.), New Spiritualities and the Cultures of Well-being, Religion, Spirituality and Health: A Social Scientific Approach 6, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-06263-6_5

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and/or a set of beliefs); and in relation to the nation (a threat to ‘our values’ or a broader conceptualization of the ‘good society’ and collective well-being which references the common good). The link between religion and well-being has been extensively reported on, usually finding a positive correlation. At the individual level, religion and spirituality are often seen as contributing to one’s physical, mental and emotional well-being (Smith & Denton, 2009; Koenig, 2012), although this connection remains somewhat controversial in the literature (Hwang et al., 2011). At the national level, religion is portrayed as contributing to the good of society through its moral values and creation of social and bonding capital (Putnam, 2000). Sociological works like Habits of the Heart, wherein Robert N. Bellah et al. (1985) reflected on the good society and the necessity of a platform of shared values that was decidedly Christian, are also focused on social cohesion.1 Bellah was of course drawing on a Durkheimian heritage that sees religion as a source of social cohesion (Durkheim, 2001). As interest in the connections between religion and well-being continues to grow (Schmidt & Leonardi, 2020), more critical approaches to studying religion in social life are also emerging with renewed attention to power relations (Algtlas & Wood, 2018). This chapter draws together these two areas by considering how social notions of well-being are shaped, contested and adjudicated in law. A growing body of literature suggests that religion has been juridified (Fokas, 2015; Koenig, 2015; Richardson, 2015; Årsheim & Slotte, 2017; Mayrl, 2018). To some extent this is also true of spirituality, which, while more amorphous than religion, has also entered into the regulatory purview of law as we will demonstrate in this chapter. Although there is no clear definition of juridification, or, for that matter, even the proper term to be used (some scholars use judicialisation in the same way), scholars of various disciplines have identified the increased regulation and attention given to religion by law in both national and global contexts. These processes include, for example, how courts frame religion or belief; sanction and prohibit certain religious practices; and consolidate religious freedom rights for individuals who identify with minority religions. While juridification in this sense encapsulates how law impacts religion, this legal process also relates to how religious actors turn to law to settle their conflicts and concerns. Others connect the juridification of religion to society more broadly, with Sandberg (2014, 9) noting that the “juridification of religion is both the result and the cause of sociological changes concerning religion.” For our purposes, the discussion below demonstrates the extent to which law weighs in on what constitutes religion, spirituality and culture and its imposition of legal frameworks on beliefs and practices. Of course, the shifting boundaries of concepts such as ‘religion’ and ‘culture’ are a necessary component of any consideration of legal frameworks on contested beliefs and practices. The presence of majoritarian religious symbols and practices in public and institutionalized settings are often supported by social actors who shape them into being part of ‘our culture and heritage.’ This discursive construction blurs the line between religion and culture, and it turns culture into a reference  For a discussion on social cohesion, see Ezzy et al. (2020).

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point for assessing the public presence of practices like prayer and symbols like the cross (Astor & Mayrl, 2020; Beaman, 2020). Taking a broad view of well-being, we link these discussions to law’s formulation of the good society. This in turn exposes law’s position as being invested in the society in which it operates. This is not a revelation, but it is sometimes forgotten in the claims to neutrality and objectivity which have long been the subject of analysis by critical legal scholars.2 It is with these considerations that we turn to the focus of this chapter. In the pages that follow we examine three cases, one each from Canada, the United States and the United Kingdom. The first case, Servatius v. Alberni School District No. 70, focuses on a British Columbia (Canada) parent’s challenge to an Indigenous smudging and prayer presentation in her children’s elementary school. The court adjudicates the meaning and intention of the events, drawing a distinction between education about religion and religious education or indoctrination. In the second case, Sedlock v. Baird, the court must decide whether a California school district’s yoga curriculum is religious or secular. It concludes that yoga in the American context is not inherently religious and that the curriculum in question is definably secular. Lastly, in Casamitjana v. The League Against Cruel Sport, an ethical vegan from London makes a discrimination claim against his former employer. We focus on the preliminary judgement of this case, for which the UK tribunal concludes that ethical veganism constitutes a philosophical belief and is thus protected from discrimination. Focusing on these three cases, our analysis explores the legal construction of boundaries around religion-spirituality-culture and the implications of this process for well-being. We specifically consider conceptualizations of individual and collective well-being, and whether individual well-being is linked to articulations of the good society. We also account for notions of authority embedded in legal discussions, especially who speaks, who decides and who is an expert on religion-spirituality-culture.

1 Servatius v. Alberni School District No. 703 During the 2015–2016 school year at the John Howitt Elementary School in the small community of Port Alberni, British Columbia, an Indigenous elder performed a smudging ritual in a classroom and an Indigenous dancer performed at an assembly and offered a prayer. British Columbia is a Canadian province with rich and vibrant Indigenous communities, many of whom are attempting to reclaim their territory and culture in a post-colonial era. The John Howitt Elementary School is on traditional Nuu-chah-nulth territory and Indigenous children make up one third of its student population. Following the Truth and Reconciliation Commission (TRC) and the resulting Calls to Action presented in 2015 (which specifically laid

 See Mossman (1987) and Valverde (2003).  Servatius v. Alberni School District No. 70, 2020 BCSC 15.

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out the role of education in facilitating reconciliation), inclusion of Indigenous rituals, practices and lifeways in the school setting has increased.4 Such education about Indigenous culture is seen as a cornerstone of not only reconciliation, but good citizenship and in keeping with the multicultural values of Canada. The good citizen is someone who knows the history of colonization and can respond to it appropriately. Our analysis is in no way a criticism of this goal, but rather an identification of the social and cultural context in which it takes place, and the discursive practices that shape the conceptualization of Indigenous beliefs and practices. An important component of reconciliation is the recognition of harm done to Indigenous peoples by white settlers and colonizers. For our purposes, the notion of well-being springs from this in three ways. First, the nation of Canada is seen as broken and unable to move forward until reconciliation with Indigenous peoples is accomplished. Well-being thus becomes linked to activities that foster reconciliation and Indigenous inclusion into the social fabric as well as the very reweaving of the social fabric itself. Second, it is widely acknowledged that the harm done to Indigenous peoples must be addressed. Indigenous communities and their well-­ being are at the core of the spirit of reconciliation. Finally, it is vital that Indigenous children feel that their culture, heritage and stories are represented in the education system, which played a major role in the attempted cultural genocide by colonizers through the residential school system.5 Reconciliation is thus intricately bound up with the notion of well-being, although it is not always clear that a common vision of well-being is being pursued and who precisely defines its parameters. This is evidenced, for example, by the ongoing dispute in British Columbia over the Trans Mountain Expansion Project, which entails the twinning of an oil pipeline that runs through unceded Indigenous lands.6 While some Indigenous peoples are supportive of the government-owned project, many communities remain in opposition for various reasons, including the inevitable threat of oil spills to their lands and waters. It was in this post-colonial context that Candice Servatius, an evangelical Christian, expressed concern that her 9-year-old daughter and 7-year-old son had been exposed to Indigenous smudging and prayer rituals at John Howitt Elementary School. Specifically, she objected to what she perceived to be their coerced participation in an Indigenous smudging ritual and prayer. She also argued that Indigenous religion was being privileged above her own.  The TRC (2015: 16) describes reconciliation in part as “an ongoing process of establishing and maintaining respectful relationships. A critical part of this process involves repairing damaged trust by making apologies, providing individual and collective reparations, and following through with concrete actions that demonstrate real societal change.” 5  In regard to the TRC and residential school survivors, Coburn (2018) states, “Indigenous peoples are acutely aware that their views, their existences, and their heritage have barely registered in colonial accounts of Canadian identity. The TRC offered the occasion to make Indigenous representations in their own voice, to allow survivors of residential schools to speak their truth. At the same time, survivors graciously extended an olive branch to Canadians. They asked Canadians to accept their truth so that we can all then move forward in reconciliation.” 6  This includes  unceded Secwepemc Territory. For more information, visit www.tinyhousewarriors.com. 4

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The Alberni judgment begins with a succinct statement of the smudging presentation’s dual purpose, along with a clear characterization of the practice as ‘Indigenous culture.’ The court stated: “As part of an effort to acquaint students with Indigenous culture and to promote a sense of belonging in Indigenous children, a Nuu-chah-nulth Elder visited a Port Alberni elementary school and demonstrated the practice of smudging” (para. 1). Two interrelated notions of well-being permeate this characterization by the court: first, to acquaint students with Indigenous culture and second, to promote a sense of belonging in Indigenous children. However, the court noted that schools must operate on “secular, non-sectarian principles” in accordance with British Columbia’s School Act (para. 5). Thus, “Activities relating to culture, traditions or religions are to be designed and implemented as educational experiences” (para. 5). In its decision, the court noted the importance of the history of the Port Alberni area, highlighting that the “good fortune of non-Iindigenous residents” who live on Vancouver Island is partly attributable to Captain James Cook bringing disease and cultural disruption to Indigenous peoples (para. 18). In other words, the well-being of the colonizers came at the cost of suffering for Indigenous peoples. While there was some economic participation and prosperity for Indigenous communities, that declined with assimilationist federal government policies, including the residential school programme. This history continues to impact Indigenous communities and as the court pointed out, a substantial gap continues to exist between the educational success of Aboriginal and non-Aboriginal Canadians. At the heart of the controversy over the demonstration of Indigenous smudging, dancing and prayers is this recognition of the continued disadvantage and vulnerability of Indigenous peoples, and specifically the well-being of Indigenous children in schools. The aim is to make the school a culturally safe place. The Indigenous practices that took place at the John Howitt Elementary School are, therefore, imbricated in a broader colonial history that now requires action to help repair Canada’s relationship with Indigenous communities. The smudging ritual is an example of this process of reconciliation. At issue in the Alberni case was the nature of that ritual—religious? Cultural? Secular? The court stated: Of course, teaching methods must comply with the requirement to operate schools on strictly secular principles. By way of examples in relation to this secular requirement, Mr. Cadwallader agreed with the proposition that teaching on the subject of Indigenous beliefs about supernatural beings would be appropriate, but teaching these beliefs as fact would be inappropriate. (para. 37)

The language of the court speaks of Indigenous worldviews, experiences, culture, practice and tradition. The information letter sent home to parents, however, seemed to suggest something else. The court noted that the actual unfolding of events and the description in the letter were different and that the letter might explain why Ms. Servatius was uneasy. The underscoring in the following letter is the court’s. A great welcome to 2015/2016 opportunity has been offered to our class. It is a Traditional Nuu-chah-nulth Classroom/Student Cleansing. We will have a guest Nuu-chah-nulth Member, along with our Nuu-chah-nulth Education Worker, Sherri Cook, in our classroom to teach us about Nuu-chah-nulth Culture and History.

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Based on the evidence the court found that the students did not hold cedar branches and there was no smudging or cleansing of students. The Nuu-chah-nulth Tribal Council, a party to the case, took the position that the smudging ritual is a cultural, not a religious practice. While the court introduced a range of language to describe the practice of smudging—ritual, worldview, beliefs, tradition, perspectives, culture—it also stated, “It ought not to be inferred from these reasons that I have made a finding that Nuu-chah-nulth smudging is or is not a religious practice” (para. 101). This being said, the court did not refer to the smudging ritual as a religious ritual throughout the case, and in its conclusion notes that the visits by the elder and the dancer are “admirable and admissible efforts to teach, in a memorable way, about Indigenous beliefs” (para. 108; emphasis ours). All of the parties in the Alberni case and the Christian pastor called as an expert witness by Ms. Servatius agreed that learning about customs, rituals, spiritual or supernatural beliefs was acceptable and part of being a good citizen in a diverse society. But there was a line between the secular school system teaching about such practices and students participating in them. In such a secular system the school has a duty to be neutral and, under British Columbia’s School Act, this means that “no religious dogma or creed it to be taught” (para. 69). Hence the contest of the Alberni case was over the characterization of the smudging ritual—the court found that it was cultural and that children observed it but did not participate in it. Ms. Servatius argued that it was religious, and her children participated in it, which was against their religious beliefs. As for the prayer, the issue was whether students were instructed to participate in the prayer or observe. The court found that they were instructed to observe. This line between education about religion and religious education reflects broader international trends. The underlying assumption is that education about religion in diverse societies is a good thing, contributing to students’ well-being as individuals, but also to the broader well-being of the nation by shaping citizens who can navigate difference.7 This broader focus is largely absent from the next case, which focused on the well-being of students as they participated in a yoga programme.

 For perspectives on religious diversity in education, see Jackson (2003, 2012), Arweck and Jackson (2014), Beaman and Van Arragon (2015), and Halafoff (2016). 7

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2 Sedlock v. Baird8 Similar to the elementary school in the Alberni case, California’s Encinitas Union School District (EUSD) found itself in the midst of a legal battle with parents over what constitutes religion and its teaching. At issue in this case was the secular/religious/spiritual status of yoga. During the 2012–2013 school year, the EUSD implemented a yoga curriculum based on Ashtanga yoga in all nine of its elementary schools. The curriculum largely consisted of teaching students Ashtanga poses, breathing exercises, relaxation and character traits like respect. However, the EUSD was confronted with complaints from some parents who saw the yoga programme as being religious. In response the EUSD updated the curriculum by removing its guided meditation scripts and renaming certain poses. The lotus position, for example, was renamed to “‘criss-cross applesauce’” (p. 10). A mudra used in the curriculum became known as a “‘brain highway’” (p. 10). These changes helped the EUSD to better demonstrate the curriculum’s “secular purpose” of fostering the students’ “physical and mental health” (p. 30). While acknowledging this “secular purpose” (p. 10), parents Stephen and Jennifer Sedlock maintained that the yoga curriculum was still religious. They argued that it advanced Hinduism while limiting other religions like Christianity, thus violating the religious establishment clause in the California Constitution. Unlike the Alberni case, the focus in Sedlock was not explicitly linked to nation, citizenship or inclusion. Rather, the EUSD’s intention for teaching yoga practice as presented in the case was to promote physical and mental health and character building. American heroes like Jessie Jackson, Martin Luther King Jr. and Babe Ruth were quoted, each representing a lesson in a perceived character strength. Students were asked at the end of class how they were feeling. Hence the curriculum in Sedlock was not intended to educate students about religion, but to promote their own well-being and self-improvement. This approach is situated in the current mindfulness phenomenon which has infiltrated health institutions, private companies and all levels of education, including postsecondary institutions (Bush, 2011; Schonert-Reichl & Roeser, 2016). It also connects to a body of research that explores the physical and mental health benefits of yoga for children and adolescents, with some proposing that these benefits support the implementation of yoga in school curricula (Butzer et al., 2016). The EUSD yoga curriculum was explicitly designed to promote various points of well-being for elementary school students, for it involves teaching students not only physical poses and breathing exercises, but “‘life skills built around key themes of yoga instruction such as self-discipline, balance, and responsibility’” (p. 8). The court in Sedlock concluded that the EUSD yoga curriculum is secular because various Hindu beliefs and Sanskrit terms associated with Ashtanga yoga are absent from its curriculum. The students participate in the practice of yoga, but they do not learn about its religious concepts or roots. In addition, the curriculum  Sedlock v. Baird, 235 Cal. App. 4th 874 (2015).

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did not address ultimate concerns, was not a systematic series of answers and did not have ceremonial functions or clergy (p. 27). In reaching its conclusion the court further considered yoga outside of the EUSD curriculum. It states: “If…the Sedlocks mean that all yoga as currently practiced in the United States, is inherently religious, we emphatically disagree. A yoga program such as the [EUSD’s] that merely combines physical poses with breathing and quiet contemplation does not comport with any definition of religious activity of which we are aware” (p. 27). Expert evidence was also cited to affirm that yoga had developed over the past 150 years as a “‘distinctly American cultural phenomenon’” (p.  29). Although the court considered yoga in a national context here, there is no notion of the good society in Sedlock, save for the idea of a secular state that does not endorse religion.9 The focus rather remained on yoga’s individual benefits for students. As in Alberni, the court was careful to distinguish between what might seem to be religion and what actually happened on the ground, in the classroom in everyday life. That is, it emphasized that “as implemented” the yoga curriculum was secular and not religious as it may be in other contexts (p. 20; emphasis theirs). In this line of reasoning the court was careful to make a distinction between the stated purpose of the EUSD’s curriculum and the Ashtanga yoga that originally inspired it. As explained by the court: Ashtanga yoga is a form of yoga developed and popularized by K. Pattabhi Jois. According to Jois, the meaning of yoga is explained in a series of Hindu texts, including the Bhagavad Gita, the Upanishads, and Yoga Sutras. Jois first established an institute for the teaching of Ashtanga yoga in India in the 1940s, and introduced Ashtanga yoga in the United States after traveling to Encinitas in 1974. As developed and popularized by Jois, Ashtanga yoga prescribes eight limbs. The limbs are referred to as yamas (moral codes), niyamas (self-­ purification), asanas (postures), pranayana (breath control), pratyahara (withdrawing the mind from the senses), dharana (concentration), and samadhi (union with the divine). (pp. 5–6)

The court was clear that the secular character the EUSD curriculum is not compromised through its connection to Ashtanga yoga. It also distinguishes it from the KP Jois Foundation, which funded the first yoga programme at a EUSD school and trained and certified teachers to teach yoga to students. In addition to finding that the beliefs of Ashtanga yoga are absent from the EUSD curriculum, such as its ‘eight limbs,’ the court also highlighted that the KP Jois Foundation did not have any influence over the creation of the curriculum. Students were physically engaged in the practice of yoga as part of the EUSD curriculum by assuming certain poses replicated from Ashtanga yoga. Yet for the court it was the teachings, beliefs and motivations behind the yoga poses, as opposed to the bodily practice of posing itself, that was definingly religious or secular. While an elementary school student may be doing the exact same yoga pose as a member of the KP Jois Foundation, only one of them would be engaging in religious  Arguably the character-building component of EUSD yoga curriculum could be linked to ideas about the ‘good citizen,’ but unlike the Alberni case there was no clear articulation of this concept in Sedlock. 9

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practice. This point is related to Dabby and Barras’ (2018) observation that the court in Sedlock viewed yoga as being exclusively religious or secular, i.e., that yoga cannot be simultaneously religious and secular, or a religious practice with secular benefits—it must be one or the other. At the same time, the court acknowledged that yoga is somewhat fluid in that its character depends on the meaning people attribute to it. This perspective is made clear from the beginning of the case when the court asserted: “For many in this country, the practice of yoga is an entirely secular experience undertaken for reasons such as increasing physical flexibility, decreasing pain, and reducing stress. For others, the practice of yoga is a religious ritual, undertaken for spiritual purposes” (p. 2). The yoga curriculum in Sedlock was nevertheless constructed as being fully secular, making it acceptable for student participation throughout the EUSD’s public or ‘secular’ schools (Beaman, 2016). Thus, ‘secular’ yoga was placed fully within a conceptualization of individual well-being and was not seen by the court to be at odds with either the well-being of the nation (which includes disestablishment) or Christianity as it was articulated by the parents involved in the case.

3 Casamitjana v. The League Against Cruel Sports10 In January 2020, a UK employment tribunal in Norwich ruled that ethical veganism qualifies for protection as a philosophical belief under the Equality Act 2010. This decision was made following a preliminary hearing in the Casamitjana case, which focuses on a discrimination claim made by Jordi Casamitjana, an ethical vegan, against his former employer, the League Against Cruel Sports (LACS). While working at LACS, a UK-based animal welfare charity, Casamitjana discovered that the charity was investing pension funds into companies that test on animals. This worried Casamitjana and he brought his concerns forward to his employers. While LACS agreed with Casamitjana that these funds should be reinvested into ethical alternatives, the charity eventually failed to make this change. In response Casamitjana told his colleagues that funds were being invested into non-ethical companies, with one exception that offered a relatively poor return rate. LACS consequently dismissed Casamitjana for gross misconduct, leading him to file a discrimination claim on the grounds that his dismissal discriminated against his ethical vegan beliefs. Yet before his claim could be decided upon, a tribunal first had to decide that ethical veganism falls within the scope of Section 10 of the Equality Act 2010, making it worthy of legal protection from discrimination in the UK. The tribunal decision in the Casamitjana preliminary hearing outlined the requirements that must be met in order for someone to be protected under UK anti-­ discrimination law on the basis of a philosophical belief, including those who are ethical vegans. Drawing on the Employment Statutory Code of Practice from the

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 Mr. J. Casamitjana Costa v. The League Against Cruel Sports [2020] UKET 3331129/2018.

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UK’s Equality and Human Rights Commission, the tribunal noted that that all philosophical beliefs must: –– be genuinely held; –– be a belief and not an opinion or viewpoint based on the present state of information available; –– be a belief as to a weighty and substantial aspect of human life and behaviour; –– attain a certain level of cogency, seriousness, cohesion and importance; –– be worthy of respect in a democratic society, not incompatible with human dignity and not conflict with the fundamental rights of others. (at para. 2.59)11 The tribunal in Casamitjana analyzed ethical veganism with these threshold requirements, determining that ethical veganism is a philosophical belief that falls under the protective framework of the Code. Although the tribunal constructed ethical veganism as a philosophical belief, as opposed to a religious one, it could not entirely disentangle the two and related ethical veganism to religion. This is most obvious when the tribunal rooted veganism in the religious concept of ahimsa: Philosophically, the concept of veganism is rooted in the ancient concept of Ahimsa, which is one of the main premises of the ancient Indian religion of Jainism. Ahimsa means “not to injure”, compassion being the key feature of many Indian religions. The word appears to be derived from the Sanskrit “to strike”. Himsa is “to injure or harm” and Ahimsa is the opposite of this, ie. “to cause no injury and to do no harm”. Ahimsa is one of the cardinal virtues and an important tenent of Jainism, Hinduism and Buddhism and is a multi-dimensional concept inspired by the premise that all living beings have the spark of the divine spiritual energy and therefore to hurt another being is to hurt oneself. The Claimant is a firm believer that one should live following the principles of Ahimsa. (para. 11)

This link between veganism and ahimsa attributed ethical veganism with historical depth and compassionate religious morals that address human-nonhuman animal relations. The latter is significant because it aligns the philosophy of ethical veganism with religion, which unlike ethical veganism, was already protected under anti-­ discrimination law. Yet these religious roots were not addressed by the tribunal following their introduction. Indeed, any clear mention of ahimsa, Jainism, Hinduism or Buddhism remained absent from the tribunal’s ensuing analysis of ethical veganism under the UK’s Code of Practice. In addition, the tribunal’s connection between veganism and religion in this context is a relatively narrow construction (Strumos, 2021). Many ethical vegans ground their veganism in other religions, including Judaism (Labendz & Yanklowitz, 2019) and Islam (Dahlan, 2021), as well as sources that are absent of religion, such as an animal rights philosophy (Sorenson, 2010).

11  These five characteristics were first established in the UK’s 2009 Grainger v. Nicholson case, which found that a genuine belief in anthropogenic climate change and its moral imperatives can qualify as a philosophical belief under the 2003 Employment Equality (Religion or Belief) Regulation, which was later replaced by the Equality Act 2010.

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Similar to yoga in Sedlock, ethical veganism in the Casamitjana decision is discussed alongside religion, but this association has different meanings in each case. In Sedlock, the court found that just because “yoga has religious roots,” this “historical connection clearly would not lead a reasonable observer to conclude that the [EUSD’s] yoga program is religious” (p. 25). Likewise, the tribunal in Casamitjana did not define ethical veganism as religious; unlike Sedlock, however, the religious roots of veganism served to strengthen ethical veganism’s legitimacy as a philosophical belief. The relationship between veganism and ahimsa, Jainism, Hinduism and Buddhism gave ethical veganism philosophical credibility. In Sedlock, the Hindu origins of yoga and Ashtanga yoga in particular were minimized, which contributed to making the EUSD yoga curriculum ‘secular’ and thus acceptable for students at a public school. In addition to the religious concept of ahimsa, the tribunal made use of the Vegan Society and its definitional guidelines for vegans and veganism. The Vegan Society (n.d.), a vegan educational charity founded in the UK in 1944, defines veganism in part as: “A philosophy and way of living which seeks to exclude—as far as is possible and practicable—all forms of exploitation of, and cruelty to, animals for food, clothing or any other purpose.” The tribunal used the Vegan Society and its definition to describe ethical veganism as a moral framework during its analysis, bringing it into conformity with the requirement that the belief in question is not just an opinion and that it has a certain coherence. The tribunal concluded that ethical veganism “is founded upon a longstanding tradition recognising the moral consequences of non-human animal sentience which has been upheld by both religious and atheists alike” (para. 34). Well-being appears in the Casamitjana case on an individual and collective level. The case itself rests upon a legal articulation of the good society—one in which individuals are protected from discrimination against their genuinely held beliefs, religious or otherwise. As noted, the latter includes philosophical belief as found under Section 10.2 of the Equality Act 2010, which states: “Belief means any religious or philosophical belief and a reference to belief includes a reference to a lack of belief.” Protecting belief and unbelief from discrimination contributes to the ‘good society,’ for it not only protects diverse individuals and groups from discrimination, but it more broadly promotes the democratic value of equality. Further, in the context of workplace discrimination, equality of belief becomes entangled with notions of well-being on an individual level. Unequal treatment on the basis of belief, as Vickers (2016, 90) explains, “can lead to negative self-image, stigma and lack of self-esteem, all of which are harmful in themselves, as well as leading, in some cases, to economic disadvantage.” Additional aspects of well-being are present in the tribunal’s decision. The tribunal noted, for instance, that “there is no conflict between veganism and human dignity as humans are also sentient beings which need to be equally respected and protected. Ethical veganism is not in conflict with the rights of others, it does not require non-vegans to behave in a particular way” (para. 19). This statement gestures to a more expansive notion of well-being, but also seems to reference a conformity test with a certain liberal understanding of the good society—a society in

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which assessments of harm to others plays an important role in thinking about rights. These traces of liberalism link to a regulatory framework within which law both operates and enforces. The tribunal concluded: “Given modern day thinking, it is clear ethical veganism does not in any way offend society, it is increasingly recognised nationally, particularly by the environmental benefits of vegan observance” (para. 38; emphasis added). Well-being in the tribunal’s decision was further linked to Casamitjana’s life as an ethical vegan, and the relationships that ethical vegans more generally construct with nonhuman animals. Casamitjana’s concern for nonhuman animal exploitation informs his everyday life. He does not consume animal flesh, milk nor eggs, eschews entertainment that relies on the confinement animals like zoos and aquariums, and does his best to avoid using or coming into contact with materials and products derived from animals. His ethical veganism also impacts his social life with other humans, so that he avoids, for example, “social gatherings if the food served is non-­ vegan” (para. 20.5). The tribunal reviewed the details of Casamitjana’s daily life, presumably to demonstrate that it assessed the seriousness with which he takes his vegan worldview. Within this approach, well-being shifts from the individual human to a more expansive understanding of well-being that includes nonhuman species.12 This was especially clear in the tribunal’s analysis of ethical veganism under the threshold requirements of a philosophical belief from the UK’s Code of Practice. For instance, in determining that ethical veganism is “a belief as to a weighty and substantial aspect of human life and behavior,” the tribunal asserted: The belief [of ethical veganism] is at its heart between the interaction of human and non-­ human animal life. The relationship between humans and other fellow creatures is plainly a substantial aspect of human life, it has sweeping consequences on human behaviour and clearly it is capable of constituting a belief which seeks to avoid the exploitation of fellow species. (para. 35)

Here, the tribunal extended well-being beyond the human to encapsulate moral consideration of “other fellow creatures.” This point relates back, albeit implicitly, to the tribunal’s explanation of ahimsa as being about non-injury and compassion (para. 11). More specifically, then, not only does well-being extend to humans’ “fellow species,” but it becomes manifested in the ethical relations between nonhuman animals and vegans like Casamitjana.

 Although not discussed by the tribunal in Casamitjana, there is a vast and diverse body of academic literature that reconceptualizes the traditional human-nature binary of western thought, seeking to reconfigure the status of nonhuman beings in our communities, societies, worldviews and cosmologies. These developments include legal and political reconfigurations that represent a more egalitarian model for human-nonhuman animal relations. One example is the animal rights framework of Donaldson and Kymlicka (2011), which reconceptualizes citizenship to include all nonhuman animal communities. 12

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4 Conclusions Each of the cases we have discussed illustrates the circulation of discourses of well-­ being as they intertwine with spirituality, belief and ritual practices in law. In both Alberni and Sedlock the practices under scrutiny are distanced from what might be considered to be religion. In the former case this produces good citizens who better understand cultural difference, and in the latter well-adjusted individuals who are shadowing character strengths of national heroes. In Casamitjana, well-being is present in the tribunal’s construction of ethical veganism as a philosophical belief, specifically in the ethical relations between human and nonhuman animals that becomes embodied through the vegan lifestyle. The shape of religion-spirituality-­ culture in each case illustrates how the law constructs these categories within its own framework. This is not to say they are not real categories, but that their shapes and contents shift and change depending on who is using them, to what ends, and in which context. All three cases take place in western democratic societies with a strong legacy of majoritarian Christianity and a rapidly changing religious landscape. This is particularly evident in the Alberni case. The court draws on the national project of reconciliation to contextualize the significance of the events that unfolded at John Howitt Elementary School, emphasizing the church-led residential school era which lives on through intergenerational survivors.13 The court concluded that learning from Indigenous peoples about their practices is one way to make schools culturally safe places for Indigenous students. The Alberni case is thus situated in the context of Canada’s new diversity, which includes an increased recognition for Indigenous communities and their spiritualities by the non-Indigenous, settler population (Beaman, 2017). The Sedlock case reflects the spread yoga as a ‘spiritual commodity’ in American consumer culture (Jain, 2014, 2020). The Yoga Alliance and Yoga Journal reported in 2016 that the United States has more than 36 million yoga practitioners, “while annual practitioner spending on yoga classes, clothing, equipment, and accessories rose to $16 billion, up from $10 billion over the past four years” (Yoga Alliance, 2016). Whether yoga’s popularity should be characterized as a religious, spiritual or cultural phenomenon (or all three) is uncertain, but as Sedlock makes clear, the boundaries are fluid and contested. The Casamitjana case emerges during a time when veganism is on the rise in the UK and other western societies. This includes the number of those who self-identify as vegan, and the circulation of discourses that construct veganism as a concept and identity. Veganism itself is incredibly diverse, with multiple motivations existing for  This point becomes particularly relevant in light of the thousands of Indigenous children’s bodies being located in unmarked graves at former residential school sites. In May 2021, the Tk’emlúps te Secwépemc First Nation located the remains of 215 children at the former Kamloops Indian Residential School in British Columbia, and similar findings continue to appear across Canada. Veldon Coburn (2021) writes: “Now that [the children] have been located, the surviving families, communities and Nations can begin to think about custodianship of the remains, mourning and memorialization. That much is up to them and every support and resource ought to be provided.” 13

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becoming and remaining vegan. “But regardless of its various manifestations,” Laura Wright (2015, 19) explains, “the vegan body and vegan identity, as created by vegans and nonvegans and as depicted in art, literature, and the popular cultural media, constitute a performative project and an entity in a state of perpetual transformation and alteration.” As seen in the Casamitjana preliminary hearing decision, veganism can also be depicted and transformed in law. Ethical veganism, often characterized by its concern for the oppression and suffering of nonhuman animals, becomes a philosophical belief in accordance with the law’s own language and understanding of belief. Although well-being often takes the shape of a mandate to ‘care for the self,’ our observation from the Alberni, Sedlock, and Casamitjana cases is that it cannot be reduced to the individual. Rather, embedded in the legal discussions we have analysed are larger notions of the good society that discursively shape the ethics of well-­ being. This is not a causal relationship, but rather a productive and relational tweaking of the good citizen and how she is to be realized, whether through yoga, ethical veganism or experiencing rituals of ‘the other.’ Acknowledgements  Lori G. Beaman would like to acknowledge the ongoing financial support of her research through her Canada Research Chair in Religious Diversity and Social Change, and her funding from the Social Science and Humanities Research Council of Canada as Principal Investigator for the Nonreligion in a Complex Future project.

References Altglas, V., & Wood, M. (Eds.). (2018). Bringing back the social into the sociology of religion: Critical approaches. Brill. Årsheim, H., & Slotte, P. (2017). The juridification of religion? Brill Research Perspectives. Law and Religion, 2(1), 1–89. Arweck, E., & Jackson, R. (Eds.). (2014). Religion, education and society. Routledge. Astor, A., & Mayrl, D. (2020). Culturalized religion: A synthetic review and agenda for research. Journal for the Scientific Study of Religion, 59(2), 209–226. Beaman, L. G. (2016). Namaste: The perilous journey of ‘real’ yoga. In L. G. Beaman & S. Sikka (Eds.), Constructions of self and other in yoga, travel, and tourism: A journey to elsewhere (pp. 101–110). Palgrave Macmillan. Beaman, L. G. (2017). Recognize the new religious diversity. Canadian Diversity, 14, 17–19. Beaman, L. G. (2020). The transition of religion to culture in law and public discourse. Routledge. Beaman, L. G., & Van Arragon, L. (Eds.). (2015). Issues in religion and education: Whose religion? Brill. Bellah, R. N., Madsen, R., Swidler, A., Sullivan, W. M., & Tipton, S. M. (1985). Habits of the heart: Individualism and commitment in American life. University of California Press. Bush, M. (2011). Mindfulness in higher education. Contemporary Buddhism, 12(1), 183–197. Butzer, B., Bury, D., Telles, S., & Khalsa, S. B. S. (2016). Implementing yoga within the school curriculum: A scientific rationale for improving social-emotional learning and positive student outcomes. Journal of Children’s Services, 11(1), 3–24. Coburn, V. (2018, January 23). Reconciliation can’t happen without truth. So why do some suppress it? Maclean’s. https://www.macleans.ca/opinion/reconciliation-­cant-­happen-­without-­ truth-­so-­why-­do-­some-­suppress-­it/. Accessed 10 June 2020.

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Coburn, V. (2021, June 1). No longer ‘the disappeared’: Mourning the 215 children found in graves at Kamloops Indian Residential School. The Conversation. https://theconversation.com/ no-­longer-­the-­disappeared-­mourning-­the-­215-­children-­found-­in-­graves-­at-­kamloops-­indian-­ residential-­school-­161782. Accessed 23 Feb 2022. Dabby, D., & Barras, A. (2018). Bent out of shape: Fictions of yoga and religion before the courts. Religion & Human Rights, 13(3), 270–296. Dahlan, M. (2021). Veganism and Islam. In L. Wright (Ed.), The Routledge handbook of Vegan studies (pp. 226–234). Routledge. Donaldson, S., & Kymlicka, W. (2011). Zoopolis: A political theory of animal rights. Oxford University Press. Durkheim, É. (2001). The elementary forms of religious life (C.  Cosman, Trans.). Oxford University Press. Ezzy, D., Bouma, G., Barton, G., Halafoff, A., Banham, R., Jackson, R., & Beaman, L. G. (2020). Religious diversity in Australia: Rethinking social cohesion. Religions, 11(2), 92. Fokas, E. (2015). Directions in religious pluralism in Europe: Mobilizations in the shadow of European Court of Human Rights religious freedom jurisprudence. Oxford Journal of Law and Religion, 4(1), 54–74. Halafoff, A., Arweck, E., & Boisvert, D. (Eds.). (2016). Education about religions and worldviews: Promoting intercultural and interreligious understanding in secular societies. Routledge. Hwang, K., Hammer, J. H., & Cragun, R. T. (2011). Extending religion-health research to secular minorities: Issues and concerns. Journal of Religion and Health, 50(3), 608–622. Jackson, R. (Ed.). (2003). International perspectives on citizenship, education and religious diversity. Routledge. Jackson, R. (Ed.). (2012). Religion, education, dialogue and conflict: Perspectives on religious education research. Routledge. Jain, A. (2014). Selling yoga: From counterculture to pop culture. Oxford University Press. Jain, A. (2020). Peace love yoga: The politics of global spirituality. Oxford University Press. Koenig, H. G. (2012). Religion, spirituality, and health: The research and clinical implications. ISRN Psychiatry, 2012, 1–33. Koenig, M. (2015). The governance of religious diversity at the European Court of Human Rights. In J. Boulden & W. Kymlicka (Eds.), International approaches to governing ethnic diversity (pp. 51–78). Oxford University Press. Labendz, J. A., & Yanklowitz, S. (Eds.). (2019). Jewish veganism and vegetarianism: Studies and new directions. SUNY Press. Mayrl, D. (2018). The judicialization of religious freedom: An institutionalist approach. Journal for the Scientific Study of Religion, 57(3), 514–530. Mossman, M. J. (1987). Feminism and legal method: The difference it makes. Wisconsin Women’s Law Journal, 3, 147–168. Putnam, R. D. (2000). Bowling alone: The collapse and revival of American community. Simon and Schuster. Richardson, J. T. (2015). Managing religion and the judicialization of religious freedom. Journal for the Scientific Study of Religion, 54(1), 1–19. Sandberg, R. (2014). Religion, law and society. Cambridge University Press. Schmidt, B.  E., & Leonardi, J. (Eds.). (2020). Spirituality and wellbeing: Interdisciplinary approaches to the study of religious experience and health. Equinox. Schonert-Reichl, K., & Roeser, R.  W. (Eds.). (2016). Handbook of mindfulness in education: Integrating theory and research into practice. Springer. Smith, C., & Denton, M. L. (2009). Soul searching: The religious and spiritual lives of American teenagers. Oxford University Press. Sorenson, J. (2010). About Canada: Animal rights. Fernwood. Strumos, L. (2021). Ethical veganism as nonreligion in Mr J Casamitjana Costa v the League Against Cruel Sports. Studies in Religion/Sciences Religieuses. Advance online publication.

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The Truth and Reconciliation Commission of Canada. (2015). Honouring the truth, reconciling for the future: Summary of the final report of the Truth and Reconciliation Commission of Canada. Truth and Reconciliation Commission of Canada. The Vegan Society. (n.d.). Definition of veganism. The Vegan Society. www.vegansociety.com/go-­ vegan/definition-­veganism. Accessed 7 Apr 2020. Valverde, M. (2003). Law’s dream of common knowledge. Princeton University Press. Vickers, L. (2016). Religious freedom, religious discrimination and the workplace (2nd ed.). Hart Publishing. Wright, L. (2015). The vegan studies project: Food, animals, and gender in the age of terror. University of Georgia Press. Yoga Alliance (2016). 2016 Yoga in America Study conducted by Yoga Journal and Yoga Alliance reveals growth and benefits of the practice. Yoga Alliance. https://www.yogaalliance.org/Get_ Involved/Media_Inquiries/2016_Yoga_in_America_Study_Conducted_by_Yoga_Journal_ and_Yoga_Alliance_Reveals_Growth_and_Benefits_of_the_Practice. Accessed 11 June 2020. Lori G. Beaman, Ph.D., F.R.S.C., is the Canada Research Chair in Religious Diversity and Social Change, Professor in the Department of Classics and Religious Studies at the University of Ottawa, and Director of the ‘Nonreligion in a Complex Future’ project (nonreligionproject.ca). She previously directed the ‘Religion and Diversity Project’ (religionanddiversity.ca). Her publications include The Transition of Religion to Culture in Law and Public Discourse (Routledge, 2020), Deep Equality in an Era of Religious Diversity (Oxford University Press, 2017, Italian translation Eguaglianza profunda in un’era di diversità religiosa, Ariele, 2018) and “Living Well Together in a (non)Religious Future: Contributions from the Sociology of Religion,” Sociology of Religion, 78(1): 9–32. Professor Beaman received the 2017 Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada Impact Award in the Insight Category and holds an honorary doctorate from Uppsala University. She also received the Award for Excellence in Research, Association of Professors of the University of Ottawa, 2017–2018. Her current and engaged areas of research include nonreligion, equality, rights and freedoms, human/non-human relationships, law, religious diversity.  

Lauren Strumos is a doctoral candidate in the Department of Classics and Religious Studies at the University of Ottawa. Her research engages theories of environmental and ecological justice to examine religious and nonreligious environmental activism in Canada from a sociological perspective. Her other research interests include veganism and human/non-human animal relations.  

Economic Reforms and Spiritual Transformations? Iran from the 1990s Behnaz Khosravi

Abstract  In the 1990s, the Islamic Republic of Iran carried out significant economic reforms geared toward economic liberalization. The state implemented structural adjustment policies proposed by international financial organizations such as the World Bank and the International Monetary Fund. During the same period, despite the full and ongoing domination of state-supported duodecimal Shia Islam over Iranian public and media spaces, signs of the creation and development of new spiritual currents began to appear. This phenomenon, with some characteristics similar to those of New Age movements, spread quickly, especially among middle-­ class women. The present chapter aims to explore the formation of New Spiritualities in the context of the implementation of neoliberal policies in Iranian society and to examine how these practices provide a sense of empowerment to their followers. In the mid-1990s, Iranian society experienced a proliferation of spiritual ideas and practices based on assisting individuals. Iran had recently emerged from a protracted and costly war with neighboring Iraq, and, in the parlance of New Spiritualities, these practices appealed to Iranians in their efforts “to find new ways of living a better life”, “work on themselves”, and “attain spiritual peace”. The discourse was generally presented in psychological terms and was intended to bring well-being, success, prosperity, and performance to the daily lives of Iranians, and to women in particular. What these varying ideas and their accompanying discourses hold in common is a syncretic approach to beliefs and practices fashioned from eclectic resources from both the “Eastern” and “Western” spheres. Among these resources, we can cite aspects of the major religions (the three Abrahamic monotheisms as well as Zoroastrianism, Buddhism, and Hinduism), elements of mysticism, esotericism, and metaphysics, disciplines such as yoga, meditation, and Reiki, holistic and alternative medicine, different kinds of psychotherapy and The original version of this chapter was revised: There is a typo error in the word that read “Spiritualties” whereas it should be “Spiritualities” and the same has been corrected now. The correction to this chapter is available at https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-06263-6_12 B. Khosravi (*) Centre Max Weber, Université Lumière Lyon 2, Lyon, France e-mail: [email protected] © The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2022, corrected publication 2022 G. Mossière (ed.), New Spiritualities and the Cultures of Well-being, Religion, Spirituality and Health: A Social Scientific Approach 6, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-06263-6_6

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parapsychology, self-help and motivational psychology, techniques of personal development, and so on. These discourses and practices continue to be promoted in Iranian society through conferences, training seminars, private coaching, the establishment of communities, and gatherings in private and semi-clandestine settings as well as in public spaces. Numerous books dedicated to this spiritual eclecticism have been published as the movements grow, and with the formation of Internet networks, a wealth of virtual communications and online communities are being created. These communities and practices spread fairly quickly, especially among the urban middle classes. This social phenomenon is often categorized by scholars as “New Spirituality”, based on shared characteristics with what are termed New Age spiritualities by the sociology of religion (Kashi, 2009; Talebi & Ramezani, 2018; Khosravi, 2020). This raises the following question: what does this growing tendency toward New Spirituality mean in the case of Iranian society? New Age spirituality has grown as a social phenomenon in Western industrialized nations since the mid-twentieth century. Many scholarly monographs and edited collections from the late 1980s described a proliferation, diversification and popularization of New Age spiritual discourses and practices under the headings “The New Age” or “New Age movement”. Subsequent scholarship shows steady growth of both the movement and the field of study (Lewis & Melton, 1992; for descriptive overviews of a secondary literature, see Iwersen, 1999; S.  Sutcliffe, 2003; Kemp, 2004). The appearance of the New Age movement caused a shift in the sociology of religions in the West, in which the paradigm of the “decline of religion” became the “return of the religious” and “religious reconstructions”, thereby manifesting in what Charles Taylor called “the massive subjective turn of modern culture” (Taylor, 1992, p. 26). However, while the paradigms of secularization and religious decline were gaining in Western contexts, a sequence of events that resulted in the Islamic Revolution of 1979 were coming to a head in Iran. As a result, outward expressions of religion were imposed upon Iranian society via the unique form of a Shia Islam that was interpreted, formalized, and decreed by the Islamic state government. All aspects of people’s lives were impacted. How, within such a different context and historical trajectory, did New Spiritualities emerge and spread across post-revolutionary, Iranian society, as a social phenomenon in a Muslim context comparable to that experienced by Western industrialized societies? This chapter aims to study the emergence and development of novel currents of spiritualities in the 1990s and the 2000s and to discuss the correlation between the tendency toward these new spiritualities, the prevailing ethics of well-being, and the implementation of neoliberal policies in Iranian society. By comparing the Iranian context with that in Western countries, and through engaging a review of the sociological and anthropological research published in Iran in this field, I shed light on the socioeconomic context whereby the “New Spiritualities” phenomenon arose. I describe the new kinds of spiritual discourses and practices that developed in Iran, using a broad historical perspective on economic, political, social, and religious contexts. In the second part of the chapter, I focus on how this new spiritual phenomenon functions for middle-class Iranians, both as a pathway to social ascension and as a key to dealing with difficulties in individual and social life.

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In 2005–2007, I conducted a sociological study of two sizeable New Spiritualities communities in Tehran. The first case study involved a community with a mystical approach to Islam, that held weekly conferences organized around the interpretation of verses from thirteenth-century Muslim scholar and mystic Jalal ad-Din Rumi’s Masnavi-e ma’navi. This poetic work, well-known in Persian literature and influential in Sufi thought, was read alongside verses from the Quran. The conference content and the rites practiced at its conclusion created conceptual connections with the traditions of Sufism, which seek a path to God. The second case study focused on a community that specialized in the “Human Potential Movement” and personal development, and involved a Persian version of programs run by private American companies such as Lifespring, Landmark Education and Mind Dynamics. These companies were recognized as promoters of New Age techniques for their specialization in personal development and “the movement of human potential” using psychological techniques (Lewis & Melton, 1992). My research aimed to highlight some of the characteristics of these two groups and their contributions to the formation of New Spiritualities in Iranian society. In addition, I examined the correlation between the social profiles of the members, including social position, cultural capital, age, and economic class, with the tendency to participate in these groups. Several methods were adopted to collect data: participant observation during the training programs, semi-structured interviews with ten people, and a survey questionnaire of around 100 questions which were completed by a sample of 57 people (20% of the participants in both programs).

1 Ethics of Self-Spirituality and a Dominant Ethos of Consumerism in Post-revolutionary Iran: A Historical Review As a growing social phenomenon in Iranian urban society, New Age spiritualities have drawn the attention of scholars since the 2000s (Khosrokhavar, 2007; Ramezani et al., 2019); for ethnographic studies, see (Khosravi, 2007; Kashi, 2009; Doostdar, 2012; Gholamizadeh Behbahani, 2016; Talebi & Ramezani, 2018; Jaberian et al., 2019). By beginning on the fringes of the Shia Islam that was dominant in the mid-­1990s, these scholars show how public and private circuits, courses, conferences, and workshops that promoted different associations of psycho-spiritual ideas and practices began to develop in Iranian urban society. Scholarly monographs on New Spiritualities (ma’naviat-hâ-ye jadid in Persian) or those developed under titles such as “New Age spiritualities”, “New Spiritual Trainings”, or “New religiosity” generally described the promotion of new modes of belief and practice, each one claiming “unique” doctrines and techniques to ensure the well-being of the individual. The discourses and practices in this sphere are generally based on an amalgam of large, complex and traditional religious, spiritual, psychological, and parapsychological theories, belief systems, and training (see Khosravi, 2007; Kashi, 2009; Doostdar, 2012; Gholamizadeh Behbahani, 2016).

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According to these studies, the Iranian New Spiritualities movement can be divided into two categories: one with foreign origins and the other with roots in Iranian concepts, and Islamic concepts in particular. More precisely, while the first category introduces spiritual currents imported from outside Iran that occasionally adopt some Iranian or Islamic concepts or rituals in order to legitimize the activities and appeal to the culture of the clients, the second category presents spiritual innovations that are loosely based on Islamic thought but that also adopt practices and concepts not easily identified with Iran and Islam (Gholamizadeh Behbahani, 2016; Khosravi, 2020). Before exploring more characteristics of the Iranian version of New Spiritualities, I will contextualize their rise in a large-scale sociological analysis of politico-­ economic circumstances. Following rapid and significant socioeconomic transformations during the 1960s and 1970s, a period of great development and economic prosperity followed by a recession, the Iranian Revolution of 1979 was presented as a protest against the monarchy, but also against capitalism and imperialism. In the months following the revolution, Shia clergy became involved in all levels of the government. The result was that anti-capitalistic and anti-imperialistic trends took on an increasingly religious aspect by promising better economic conditions for the “oppressed” (mostaz’afin in Quranic terms) and greater social equality. Hence, the economic policies of the first post-revolutionary decade led to an increase in state control over the economy, the nationalization of banks, insurance providers, and large manufacturing companies, and the establishment of rationing, subsidies, and price controls. Another radical break in government policy took place following the end of the eight-year war with Iraq and the death of Supreme Leader of Iran Ayatollah Khomeini in 1989. These internal shifts occurred amidst a new international context brought on by the overhaul of Eastern Europe and the Soviet Union. The Islamic Republic of Iran carried out significant economic reforms, moving toward market and price liberalization through the implementation of structural adjustment policies proposed by international financial organizations, such as the World Bank and the International Monetary Fund. These policies provoked great socioeconomic changes: interventionist policies were replaced with free-market measures in the hope of rescuing the economy and reconstructing the country (Keddie, 2006; Nomani & Behdad, 2006; Abrahamian, 2008). In this new era, the Islamic Republic reduced state subsidies, price controls, and anti-hoarding campaigns, created free trade zones, lowered business taxes, encouraged construction projects and privatization of some public companies, and authorized the import of many foreign products. Free-market economy and privatization policies were a vehicle to make consumer commodities more accessible and to enrich the upper socioeconomic strata. However, they simultaneously increased income disparities and reduced the standard of living for low-income groups (Bayat, 2010, p. 67). I argue that a growing interest in lifestyle choices combined with the ethics of well-being among the upper and middle classes appeared to reflect the new economic and social policies. This created a break from the crucial question of survival during the post-revolution and war-time era of the 1980s. It also came as a radical rupture from the ideological

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emphasis upon the effacement of the individual in favour of the community of the faithful (ummah), which was constantly promoted by the Islamic government during the first post-revolutionary decade. The association between the consumer society and religion, and the development of New Age spiritual discourses and practices in the age of neoliberalism in particular, are explored by scholars in both Western societies (Rindfleish, 2005; Martikainen & Gauthier, 2013; Gauthier & Martikainen, 2016) and Muslim ones (Haenni, 2005; Rudnyckyj, 2009). In the case of Iran, the domination of consumer society following the radical economic reforms of the early 1990s may also be considered as a crucial starting point for the emergence and the increasing popularity of New Spiritualities. From this point of view, this social phenomenon of emerging spiritual practices seems to be comparable to the experiences identifiable within other societies in the age of neoliberalism. The ethic of “self-spirituality” (Heelas, 1996) is based on the sacralization of the self and the authenticity and uniqueness of each individual, which should be discovered and realized in his or her personal path. This is promoted by the Iranian version of New Spiritualities as it is by the approaches followed in the West. This ethic goes hand in hand with the development of new attitudes, which purport to expand the culture of self-care through physical and psychological wellness and well-being, beauty and prosperity, positive thinking, peace, and harmonious and empathetic relationships. At the end of the 1980–1988 war with Iraq, the urban middle class gradually reinforced itself, enhanced its standard of living, and shifted its consumer habits. The number of trips abroad for work, study, and leisure increased, new chain stores were established in Tehran and other major cities, shops that sold limited and government-­regulated goods during the war began to widen the range of products offered, and the mass media, including programs shown on state television channels as well as imported films and television programs recorded on VHS tapes and, later, the media on foreign satellite channels, developed and influenced the lifestyle of a segment of Iranian society. In the span of a few years, clothing styles, home decor, leisure activities, and other middle-class concerns evolved. The consumption of consumer goods, so taboo according to the ascetic and religious mentality emphasized in the post-revolutionary era, especially during war shortages, was revalued in a highly ostentatious form. I argue that Iran, impacted in its recent history by several radical socioeconomic changes, experienced a strong and lasting instability of its social hierarchy that provoked a heightened feeling of insecurity, anxiety, and suspicion in the upper strata regarding individuals’ social positions. Social actors in this situation showed a tendency to be able to find the manners and strategies to learn how to guarantee their “progress”, “success”, and “effectiveness”, and to demonstrate signs of achievement to their peers. Showing off these external signs of their socioeconomic position by demonstrating economic and educational success may be considered a way of affirming their rise on the social ladder, even if the new position is still very precarious, and may even be fleeting (Khosravi, 2018). It is in this context that the spread of seminars and literature claiming to teach people “how to be” and “what to do” to succeed and prosper in life emerged in Iranian society.

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In a study conducted between 2008 and 2012, Alireza Doostdar noted that two of the most frequent refrains heard from individuals attending self-spirituality seminars in Iran were that they sought tranquility or peace of mind (aramesh), or ways to enhance their concentration or focus (tamarkoz). As a response to this quest, most of the literature and the seminars in this domain in the 1990s and the early 2000s, were concerned, explicitly or implicitly, with prosperity and life success on the one hand, and meditation and therapeutic techniques (for treating oneself and others) on the other (Doostdar, 2012, p. 143). Shirin Gholamizadeh Behbahani in analyzing four different groups for “New Spiritual Training” in Tehran between 2005 and 2016, identified social difficulties and deprivations as the main impetus for the appearance of this “religious phenomenon” in Iranian society. She determined that the impact of the revolution, war, political crises and the consequent social frustration made the Iranian people “unstable” in their daily lives. As a result, they felt “a sense of political exhaustion and social anxiety”. In this context, the interaction between individuals as the social actors on the one side and “social phenomena (religion, politics, and globalization impacts)” on the other has created a conflictual situation, which in turn has led to the emergence of these New Spiritualities (Gholamizadeh Behbahani, 2016). In the decades following the revolution, Iranians’ growing quest for simple, accessible, practical, and individual instructions for solving the socio-political problems and disillusionment described by Behbahani has led them toward popular psychology, self-help methods, and spiritual practices. In Iran, consumerism (as a dominant social and cultural ethos promoted by upper-level socioeconomic groups) coincided with a growing tendency towards spiritual, mystical, and metaphysical practices. These alternative forms of spiritualities rose and developed in Iranian society from the mid-1990s and played a major role in creating a new type of “free subject”, with some similarities with the model described in the West: a consumer hero who embodies the ideal of individual autonomy and freedom by constructing his or her life through the choices offered among the alternatives (Slater, 1998; Woodhead & Heelas, 2000; Gauthier et al., 2013). It is in this context that, a decade after the establishment of an Islamic regime, some parts of society reclaimed their freedom and autonomy to review elements of Iran’s official religion, choose among them, and even combine them with alternative frameworks of meaning in order to satisfy their own requirements of “self-­ development” and “self-spirituality”. At least initially, such options, potentially fluid and even “invisible” (Luckmann, 1967) coexisted with Islamic religious beliefs without apparent contradiction. We will come back to this subject in following pages. President Mohammad Khatami (1997–2005), a moderate cleric engaged in political reform, cultural liberalization, and civil society, allowed for a relative degree of cultural freedom and tolerated a laissez faire approach to censorship in the cultural sphere. In this period, texts on methods for personal development, self-help, wellness and well-being, prosperity, and Sufism were widely published, and “books on Theosophy, New Thought, Eckankar, Buddhism, Hinduism, Gurdjieff, Krishnamurti, Carlos Castaneda, Osho, Scientology, and all manner of New Age titles [were]

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translated from English or blended into eclectic local systems” (Doostdar, 2012, p. 143). In the same era, Iran saw an increasing number of seminars, courses, training programs and diverse spiritual and mystical gatherings. The free proliferation of various types of New Spiritualities in Iran only lasted until the presidency of Mahmoud Ahmadinejad (2005–2013), when these spiritual movements began to concern the government. They were eventually considered a threat that aimed to weaken the role of religion in society. Iran’s Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei (1989–) stated that “from the proliferation of tyranny and immorality to the promotion of false mysticisms […] these are the things that are being done today by the enemies of Islam” (Khamenei, 2010). Consequently, book authors, group leaders, and members of New Spiritualities communities were subjected to strong repression. The government banned activities associated with the movements of the New Spiritualists and prohibited their meetings; intelligence services interrogated the directors. Many of the tutors and leaders were accused of “acts against national security” and were imprisoned. At the time of writing, some communities continue to practice underground with a reduced following, while others have purged potentially objectionable content from their practices, completely redefining their activities in order to achieve a formally approved status. They have accepted what amounts to constant political surveillance by the authorities to be allowed to continue to exist and operate with official sanction in Iran.

2 Idiosyncratic Combinations: “I Choose” New Age spiritualities are characterized by the mixing of syncretic approaches to beliefs and ritual practices that are inspired by diverse sources. This is apparent in Iranian spiritualities as well as those observed in other societies. Leaders of Iranian New Spirituality groups draw on extremely varied resources to offer an original and coherent combination of beliefs and practices to their audiences. This is done in such a way that the apparent consistency of the discourse masks the syncretistic amalgam of diverse worldviews and traditions on which the courses are based. This syncretistic amalgam, especially the combination of psychological and spiritual aspects, is performed and displayed during courses for the study of the Masnavi in Tehran, such as the one I joined during my fieldwork. Under the guise of interpreting Jalal ad-Din Rumi’s poems, these courses appear at first glance to be structured as academic conferences. The master, wearing a black cape over her shoulders, sits on a raised platform as she reads and interprets verses. On occasion, she reads quotes from the Quran, but this is systematically accompanied by numerous references drawn from psychology and parapsychology, such as those aimed at “work on oneself”. She then illustrates her words with examples taken from daily life. Sometimes she insists upon moral rules in a sharp and strong tone, while at other times she brings up important matters in a lively, joking manner. She moves consistently between the registers of psychology and those of pseudoscience while referencing diverse spiritual currents. She insists on themes such as “self-control” and

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“self-realization” by interpreting them in conjunction with “self-realization of God”. Session participants’ observations recorded as part of my research survey recount that she also talked about “positive thinking”, the “the energy spreading among people”, and even “the energy of colours”. At the conclusion of such conference sessions, the master may go beyond the strict didactic framework to sing poems from another work by Rumi, the Divân-e Shams, selected in conjunction with the lessons of the day. Often two or three women accompany her by playing the daf, a large drum used in traditional Persian and Kurdish music as well as during the ceremonies of many Sufi orders. Ritual practices borrowed from Sufism include rhythmic, repetitive and collective reminders of the names of God (dhikr), odes sung to God (elâhi) accompanied by the daf, group readings of Shia invocations (do’â), and Islamic religious celebrations such as the rituals of Ramadan and Ashura. The followers attend class dressed symbolically in pure white (Feuillebois-Pierunek, 2006) to perform these final rituals. One interviewee explains that “the white garment carries positive energy … when everyone is wearing white, we have the impression of being in Mecca, around the sacred house of God” (Maryam, 42 years old). Most participants emerge very impressed by these sessions. In such group practices we can identify a kind of adapted Sufism, utilized as an approach to daily wellness management. This mixture of discourse on spirituality and psychology is clearly identifiable in the responses of the interviewees. One participant affirms that, “mysticism is what teaches [her] to live in the material world while keeping a spiritual dimension [so she may] flourish” (Sima, 38 years old). In response to the question “What do you gain by continuing [to take] this course?” the community members identified that the methods provided by the master help them in their efforts toward “developing one’s personality”, in order “to have more self-confidence”, “to improve the level of satisfaction with oneself and relationships with others” or “to progress in life” so that “life become more fulfilling and happy” (Khosravi, 2020). The findings from the second phase of my fieldwork highlight the spiritual and mystical characteristics that form the foundations for the combinations of psychological and spiritual aspects of New Spiritualities in Iran. I examined the training program method, which is presented to participants as a form of psychological and personal development. The ostensible objective of the program is to help the member to “work on oneself” in order to develop his or her inner potential and to “accept” difficulties and constraints. Here, the spiritual aspect is present mainly through the rituals, which are manifested and performed in a series of role-playing games. Each participant is expected to participate in the games. In thinking about how she played, she should consider where she repeats the gaming behaviors in her real life. Parts of these games are often ritualized through staging, actions, words, and dialogue that is to be pronounced at different stages along with specific pieces of music. These ritualized games, and the intentional freeing of emotional energy and an accompanying enthusiasm, are clearly inspired ceremonies performed as part of the praxis of established religions (Islam, Christianity, Buddhism, Zoroastrianism, and others). Brought together in an eclectic way, these role-play rituals form a “package” that mixes personal development and spirituality. It is here that the syncretic aspect

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manifests itself as the training program format moves beyond the framework of pure psychological training in wellness and self-help. The process of “bricolage”, the bringing together of diverse elements into a new package, continues in the experience of each individual participant. In one exercise observed during my fieldwork, individuals who were seeking freedom in their personal choices were tasked with rummaging through a conceptual package in order to sort out a set of symbolic elements compatible with their tastes, needs and values. The participants combined the elements with other resources and attempted to create a personalized system of meaning. Numerous participants in the program of personal development who responded to my survey declared that they had “found God” and “the faith in God” through this specific method of training. At first glance, a great majority of New Spiritualities adherents did not appear to be typical practicing Muslims. For example, a large segment of female participants did not cover their hair, which was made obligatory following the revolution.1 However, more than 90% declared themselves “Shia Muslim believers”, including the 80% of respondents who claimed to practice selectively by following only some of the rules of the religion “in [their own] manner”. A desire for emancipation in the face of the constraints imposed by the official religion of Iran, Shia Islam, is expressed by New Spiritualities participants, albeit without any demonstration of a full departure from fundamental Islamic religious beliefs. The desire to experience the freedom to develop one’s own system of beliefs and rituals is one of the most important elements that initially drew these Shia Muslim women toward New Spiritualities (Khosravi, 2007, 2020). In examining the relationship between New Spiritualities and official religion, Shirin G. Behbahani ran an analysis of the trajectory of “popular religion” in Iranian society under the Islamic Republic. According to her assessment, “New Spiritual Training” in this era can be considered as a way for Iranian individuals to “de-crystallize” the strained religious instructions that became “solid, rigid, saturated”, “fully politicized and also militarized” with rituals and interdictions imposed by the political institutions. Participants take their system of beliefs and practices and “revive it” by massaging it into a “soft, light, private and practical” one. This way, religion, a central aspect of Iranian culture that was “captured” by political institutions, is “harbored” and recovered by individuals (Gholamizadeh Behbahani, 2016). According to my findings, the participants in New Spiritualities studied in both phases of my research hold in common the desire to attain a “religious feeling” and possibly even a “transcendent spiritual experience” as two of the most important and attractive experiential elements of their training. However, it is worth highlighting that in both the spirituality course and personal development program case studies, the statistical analysis of the questionnaires clearly shows that the religious Muslims who expressed the most mainstream ideologies and the most evidence of  The veil for women became obligatory based on an interpretation of sharia law. However, despite strict repression by the morality police, the compulsory veil has been met with resistance from Iranian women. Most of the women adherents to this rule within the New Spiritualities communities were not wearing the Islamic veil “properly”, ie. as legally required, even in the public spaces. 1

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regular Islamic practice were also those who were the most attracted to the spiritual dimension of their training and the charisma of the masters. These respondents, who I categorize as “religious Muslims”, more frequently cited “transcendent experiences” during their training. Moreover, they generally compared these “spiritual experiences” to ones they had already encountered during their Islamic practices, citing their experiences of the pilgrimage to Mecca or the feeling of ending the Ramadan fast at sunset as comparable moments. With this evidence in mind, I argue that New Spirituality in Iran is neither a new nor an alternative religious practice at all. According to the data, not only do the majority of New Spiritualities participants preserve their official Muslim religious identities, as noted above, but the individuals with stronger personal religious “dispositions” (Bourdieu, 2010) acquired as part of their Islamic socialization may have, in certain situations, more instances of feeling and enjoying spiritual experiences. Regardless of the contents of spiritual training sessions, participants often put lessons and emotional responses into their own spiritual “package” alongside other religious experiences (Khosravi, 2020). The studies carried out by theologians in accordance with the Iranian political regime often label the phenomenon of New Spiritualities as “emerging spiritualities” (ma’naviat-hâ-ye no-zohour), “false spiritualities” (ma’naviat-hâ-ye kâzeb), or “deviant mysticism” (Erfân-hâ-ye enherâfi) (Mazaheri-Seyf, 2013). Therefore, this re-presentation of even familiar spiritual traditions is viewed as a threat to Islamic religious adherence. However, the sociological approach I have used above reveals certain common elements which associate the practice of New Age spiritualities with official Iranian Muslim religiosity. I argue that the followers of New Spiritualities in Iran are not hostile to Shia Islam, and are not seeking a “new religion” as a replacement (Khosravi, 2007; see also Doostdar, 2012; Eftekhar Khansari, 2013; Gholamizadeh Behbahani, 2016). Employing the concepts of Robert Wuthnow, the Muslim disciples of Iranian New Spiritualities may be considered to be the “seekers” of spiritualities consistent with their commitment to Islam, rather than to be in a search of a new “dwelling-oriented” spirituality, distinct and separate from the primary organized religion of their cultural setting (Wuthnow, 2000).

3 Cultural Capital and Aspiration of Climbing the Social Ladder: “I Progress” A great majority of the followers of Iranian New Spiritualities are women who belong to the socio-economic middle class (Khosravi, 2007; Doostdar, 2012; Eftekhar Khansari, 2013; Gholamizadeh Behbahani, 2016). The affinity of the urban middle classes, especially women, with New Age spiritualities has been repeatedly demonstrated in different societies and analyzed in several ways (see Heelas & Woodhead, 2005; Sutcliffe, 2006; Illouz, 2008; Flesch, 2007). However, although the women in these studies are categorized as part of the middle class, this

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socio-economic category is itself situated within a spectrum that is dependent upon social origin and networks, cultural and economic capital, and professional status. The spectrum of what constitutes the middle class is observed across these groups as well as within the almost thirty-year history of the field of New Spiritualities studies in Iran. In the first episode of this history in the 1990s and the early 2000s, New Spiritualities followers, especially those who attended New Spiritualities events imported from outside Iran, were seen to belong to the upper middle class. The conferences and training centers were located in wealthy neighborhoods of large cities and the tuition fees were often expensive when compared to the average income of the population (Khosravi, 2007). However, as time passed, these approaches were popularized and subsequently made financially accessible to other sectors of the middling social classes. The Iranian women studied in New Spiritualities fieldwork undertaken in the early 2000s (Khosravi, 2007; Doostdar, 2012) exhibited a high level of formal education relative to the population. Specifically, almost all held a high school diploma and the majority continued their education in college or university. In addition, these women promoted their cultural capital by endeavoring to raise their qualifications through a combination of education (academic or non-academic), self-study practices, broad reading, media consumption, conference participation, training and workshops, and by financially investing in the education of both themselves and other family members. Based on the findings of my study, I argue that New Spiritualities practices among the middle classes in Tehran between the 1990s and the early 2000s can be analyzed as a form of cultural consumption. These women’s tendencies toward New Spiritualities are an attempt to develop their cultural capital and to distinguish themselves from others in their social networks, and from “ordinary” Muslim women. The New Spiritualities training courses encountered during this study were intellectually and emotionally dense, and the students were invited to reflect on their lives, their relationships, and their different ways of reacting to experiences and exercises. The majority of New Spiritualities groups in Iran make explicit and implicit claims to offer new “knowledge”, or “an educational experience” for “discovery” and “awareness” (Doostdar, 2012). The seminars oriented toward personal development, those which place an emphasis upon spiritual experience and mysticism (such as the community that integrated Sufi traditions encountered during my research), and even ones that embrace supernatural and occultist trends (as A. Doostdar studied in his research) try to open up spaces for the reception of new types of knowledge, perception and reflection. Hence, the intellectual competence acquired on this path functions for some attendees as an ersatz formal level of higher education and at times provides something akin to a diploma through its social validation of a form of social competence. To ensure that the knowledge and “reflexive competences” provided by these courses will have the necessary credibility, the training highlights references to “modernity”, “science”, and a form of “rationalization”. A. Doostdar has studied the importance of rationality in other spiritual movements, such as metaphysical doctrines, and their commitment to “science” (Doostdar, 2016, 2018). This commitment to modernity as a concept provides an

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exotic, imported aspect to these practices. Religious exoticism can be understood as a way of “finding elsewhere what is believed to have been lost [...] in the throes of modernity” (Altglas, 2014, p. 316), specifically among Western societies participating in New Age spiritual practices. Conversely, among the Iranian middle classes, exoticism in this sphere seems to manifest itself through the attachment to the modernity and rationality that Western iterations of new spiritual movements often seek to circumvent (Khosravi, 2020). During my fieldwork examinations of courses aiming to train participants in human potential, and the ritualized conferences focused on Islamic mysticism with attendant Sufi traditions, I have identified an association between the quest for spirituality on the one hand, and the aspiration toward social ascension in the cultural and intellectual domain on the other, particularly, as provided by “scientific” and “modern” knowledge and awareness (see Bastani et al., 2019). The cultural capital that is accrued as a result of the intellectual competence associated with New Spiritualities programs allows the middle classes to give meaning to consumer objects and to mark their belonging within the intellectual world. In other words, membership in a personal development or a mystical training group helps followers to “stylize” their lives (Bourdieu, 2010) in both an intellectual and a spiritual manner, so as to allow them to distinguish themselves from their peers. This distinction is acquired by buying the right to attend these sessions at a high price. Here, it is worth noting that many of the practitioners that were part of this study have also invested in other signs of wealth and have attached great importance to signifiers such as personal appearance, cars, home decor, sports, and luxury vacations as well as the pursuit of Western fashion modes. When associated with lifestyle choices made by these individuals, New Spiritualities can be analyzed as a form of cultural consumption. I introduced the argument in the first part of this chapter that the quest for this form of cultural capital goes hand in hand with what these middle-class women perceive to be necessary for them to prove their ascension on the social ladder through a demonstration of their perceived success in the cultural and educational domain. This compensates for the relative lack of stability regarding their social positions. From this perspective, tendencies toward the New Spiritualities among the middle classes in Tehran are part of a distinctive development of cultural capital and the acquisition of legitimacy in society (Bastani et al., 2019).

4 Psychologizing Social Life: “I Accept What Is, as It Is” In the final part of this chapter, I will highlight the contribution of this new spiritual system to a “psychologizing social life” (Rose, 1999). New regimes of spirituality claim to outfit individuals with self-care and self-development skills, based on psychological approaches to acting upon the self. Such spiritual movements purport to provide what is needed for followers to accept social constraints, and to develop inner potential. These skills could be considered a technology of

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“self-empowerment” to be used to deal with problems. In other words, Iranian peoples’ involvement with New Spiritualities may be seen as part of a tendency to convert individual and social problems into psychological troubles, and therefore to seek well-being in psychological solutions. This strategy, seen in Euro-American societies (Altglas, 2014) in association with neoliberal ideologies has become a way for Iranians to combat the difficulties of everyday life. Practitioners of New Spiritualities in Iran largely see themselves as engaged in looking for ways to improve their ability to deal with the difficulties they encounter in everyday life (Doostdar, 2012; Eftekhar Khansari, 2013; Gholamizadeh Behbahani, 2016). Group members encountered in this study have a particular disposition to reflexivity, perhaps linked to their social background. Compared to women in lower social classes, the respondents encountered during my two phases of fieldwork are more likely to reflect on their life trajectories, which would therefore make them more inclined to develop a “management of their emotions” and an “evaluation of their social relations”. More than 90% of respondents declared that they joined these groups to find a way to get rid of the suffering and stress generated by the difficulties and pressures of daily life (Khosravi, 2020). In this way, these women appear to be seeking solutions in psychological approaches. The domination of the ethos of culture of “Psy” (Altglas, 2014, p.  324) meaning the use of psychological tools as a solution for dealing with social problems, is interpreted as part of the process of the de-­ politicization of social life. In the capitalist or neoliberal context, the field of psychology is one of the constitutive elements of New Age spiritualities (Hanegraaf, 1996; Altglas, 2014). In post-war Iran, the process of de-politicizing the effects and consequences of profoundly traumatic social and political conditions has been undertaken by transforming them into pathological troubles. Medical treatments are sought, and psychological approaches via clinical intervention or self-spirituality training are seen as simple alternatives that have been developed and institutionalized. Iranian public campaigns in the 1990s that addressed psychiatry, psychology and mental health were certainly not limited to events associated with the emergence of New Spiritualities. In this period, the demand for psychiatric advice increased rapidly, manifesting in the public demand for easy-to-understand booklets and publications, along with invitations for psychiatrists to speak to the media. The growing accessibility of these methods on a comprehensive and practical level for the Iranian audience increased the tendency for ordinary people to translate the difficulties of their everyday lives through “professional psychiatric and psychological discourse” (Doostdar, 2012, p. 139). O. Behrouzan’s study reveals the importance of rethinking the psycho-politics of well-being in the socio-political context of Iran, and in other Middle Eastern countries that share the experience of frequent “ruptures” in their recent history (Behrouzan, 2016). Reviewing these studies can help to highlight how, following a revolution, involvement in an eight-year-long war, and several political, economic and social crises, the Iranian urban middle classes turned to solutions to their social problems in the development of individual and inner-self skills. They turned to the notion of “working on oneself” in order to recognize and demonstrate “the value and power of one’s ‘inner Essence’”, and to extend “tremendous personal capacity” (Anonymous study participants). This practice is realized

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through self-acceptance and adaptation, so one may live a life of “personal and interpersonal success and growth” and experience “self-fulfilment” (Anonymous study participants).

5 Conclusion The aim of this chapter is to contextualize the formation of New Spiritualities in Iran. From their emergence a decade after the 1979 revolution and the subsequent enforcement of state-supported Shia Islam, this growing social phenomenon provided its followers with a pathway to social ascension and a key to dealing with the difficulties of both individual matters and social life. Sociological methods for reviewing the historical background of this phenomenon can aid our understanding of how the signs of the creation and development of new currents of spirituality have manifested since the mid-1990s and the early 2000s. Sharing characteristics with New Age practices outside Iran, these movements spread quickly. It is significant that they coincided with important economic reforms, the move toward free-­ market policies, and the growing dominance of consumerism in Iran. The emergence of o-called “New Spiritualities” during this episode of Iranian history can be seen in association with the lifestyle of the urban middle classes, and most particularly among women. All the dimensions and complexities of New Spiritualities as a growing social phenomenon in Iranian society cannot be encompassed in a single study. This chapter focused on two factors that made New Spiritualities attractive to proponents who perceived them as a source of an individual’s “empowerment”. First, a type of reflexive competency contributed to the social reproduction of its cultural and intellectual form when offered with “modern” and “rational” knowledge and awareness. Second, “life skills” or, in other words, “psychosocial competency” enabled individuals to deal effectively with life’s challenges. The varied combinations of self-help and personal development methods, wellness and well-being practices, mysticism, and spiritual rituals proposed via a myriad of psycho-spiritual “packages”, sold as books, courses, and conferences, allowed disciples, most of whom were previously endowed with strong religious dispositions, to have supple spiritual experiences without the constraints of official religiosity. The traditional values of Iranian Muslim religious traditions, including salvation, devotion, asceticism, piety, austerity, restraint, abstinence, sacrifice, and redemption, lost their appeal in the face of the potential for emotional competence, happiness, flexibility, free expression, success, effectiveness and fulfilment in life, as offered by these new and attractive forms of spirituality. Moreover, with the syncretic tinkering carried out via their personal interpretations, each disciple had the feeling of shaping her own spiritual path, distinct from “ordinary traditional” religiosity. This permitted a “free”, “new”, “original”, and personalized combination of spiritualities. The tactic seems straightforward: acceptance of “what is, as it is” rather than a constant striving for change, and the transformation of oneself, solely

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by empowering the adaptiveness of inner strengths for achieving well-being, success, growth, and a joyful life.

References Abrahamian, E. (2008). A history of modern Iran. Cambridge University Press. Altglas, V. (2014). Exotisme religieux et bricolage. Archives de Sciences Sociales des Religions, 315–332. Bastani, S., Shariati, S., & Khosravi, B. (2019). Consumption of spiritual goods, a way to develop cultural capital: An inquiry on the new age spiritualities in Iran. Journal of Social Sciences Biannu, 15, 269–303. Bayat, A. (2010). Life as politics: How ordinary people change the Middle East. Stanford University Press. Behrouzan, O. (2016). Prozak diaries: Psychiatry and generational memory in Iran. Stanford University Press. Bourdieu, P. (2010). Sociologists of belief and beliefs of sociologists. Nordic Journal of Religion and Society, 23, 1–7. Doostdar, A. (2012). Fantasies of reason: Science, superstition, and the supernatural in Iran. Phd Dissertation, Harvard University. Doostdar, A. (2016). Empirical spirits: Islam, Spiritism, and the virtues of science in Iran. Comparative Studies in Society and History, 58, 322–349. Doostdar, A. (2018). The Iranian Metaphysicals: Explorations in science, Islam, and the uncanny. Princeton University Press. Eftekhar Khansari, T. (2013). Women, self and life transformation in an Iranian spiritual movement “inter-universal mysticism”: A feminist perspective. Phd thesis, University of York. Feuillebois-Pierunek, E. (2006). La maîtrise du corps d’après les manuels de soufisme (xe-xive siècles). Rev Mondes Musulmans. Méditerranée, 91–107. Flesch, H. (2007). Silent voices: Women, complementary medicine, and the co-optation of change. Complementary Therapies in Clinical Practice, 13, 166–173. Gauthier, F., & Martikainen, T. (2016). Religion in consumer society: Brands, consumers and markets. Routledge. Gauthier, F., Woodhead, L., & Martikainen, T. (2013). Consumerism as the ethos of consumer society. In Religion in consumer society: Brands, consumers and markets (pp. 1–24). Routledge. Gholamizadeh Behbahani, S. (2016). The sociological reasons of the emergence of “New Spiritual Trainings” in Iran: from a “captured religion” to a “harbored religion”. Phd Dissertation, Université de Strasbourg. Haenni, P. (2005). L’Islam de marché. Le Seuil. Hanegraaf, W. J. (1996). New age religion and Western culture: Esotericism in the Mirror of secular thought. E.J. Brill. Heelas, P. (1996). The new age movement: The Celebration of the self and the sacralization of modernity (1st ed.). Blackwell Publishers. Heelas, P., & Woodhead, L. (2005). The spiritual revolution: Why religion is giving way to spirituality (1st ed.). Wiley-Blackwell. Illouz, E. (2008). Saving the modern soul - therapy, emotions, and the culture of self-help (1st ed.). University of California Press. Iwersen, J. (1999). Phenomenology, sociology, and history of the new age. Numen, 46, 211–218. Jaberian, N., Rabiei, A., Mohaddesi, H., & Zahedi Mazandarani, M.-J. (2019). An analysis on the effective attitudinal development of social interactions among the members of the new spiritual sect of Faradarmani. Journal of Iranian Culture Research, 12, 67–100. Kashi, F. (2009). The self in new spiritualities (Khod dar ma‘naviyat-hâ-yeh Jadid). M.A. thesis, University of Tehran.

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When Spirituality Becomes Spiritual Labour: Workplace Mindfulness as a Practice of Well-Being and Productivity Mira Karjalainen

Abstract  Over the last two decades, mindfulness has become popular in Western countries as part of the well-being movement. The corporate world has taken notice and is now hailing the potential of mindfulness as a tool to increase work performance and employee well-being. This view of mindfulness, however, contains an intrinsic contradiction: the core of mindfulness is derived from Buddhist traditions that accept the present moment without judgement, while neoliberal productivity demands constant renewal and a drive for stronger performance. The ethnographic data for this study was collected in an environment emblematic of the neoliberal service economy: a professional service firm with highly skilled employees. This chapter develops the concept of spiritual labour, which is informed by the ideas of post-secularisation and spirituality in the sociology of religion and the concept of emotional labour in organisational studies. Spiritual labour refers to harnessing the spirituality of the employee and incorporating it into the work of the organisation. Keywords  Mindfulness · New spiritualities · Spiritual labour · Organisations · Well-being · Post-secularisation · Neoliberalism Mindfulness has become popular in Western countries as part of the current focus on well-being that has developed over several decades. Hailed as a “revolution” in well-being practices (Harrison, 2017; Boyce et al., 2011), mindfulness involves a holistic approach to physical, social, and psychological welfare, including spirituality (Migdal & MacDonald, 2013; see Pawar, 2016). As part of the corporate well-­ being trend, mindfulness addresses the demands for healthy lifestyles and fitness (see Cederström & Spicer, 2015) and is viewed as providing desirable outcomes for practitioners, such as increasing wellness and reducing stress (Sutcliffe et al., 2016). M. Karjalainen (*) University of Helsinki, Helsinki, Finland e-mail: [email protected] © The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2022 G. Mossière (ed.), New Spiritualities and the Cultures of Well-being, Religion, Spirituality and Health: A Social Scientific Approach 6, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-06263-6_7

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The corporate world has observed the well-being trend and widely adopted mindfulness practices into workplace organisations; mindfulness has been lauded for the potential benefits it offers for work performance and employee well-being. However, workplace mindfulness contains an inherent paradox: the core of mindfulness is derived from Buddhist traditions that accept the present moment without judgement (Kabat-Zinn, 1994, 3–4), while the idea of neoliberal productivity demands constant renewal and a drive for stronger performance (Elliott, 2015; Gill & Scharff, 2013). Although its philosophical roots are grounded in Buddhism, as part of cognitive psychology, mindfulness was developed to alleviate various psychological conditions, such as anxiety and depression (Schlieter, 2017). Mindfulness has been referred to as a “neutral” lightweight version of Buddhism, having been removed from its cultural and religious background and its communal and ethical dimensions (Purser et al., 2016). According to a widely used definition, mindfulness is “paying attention in a particular way: on purpose, in the present moment, and non-­ judgmentally” (Kabat-Zinn, 1994, 3–4). Mindfulness as a concept may be based on a very different understanding of its nature (Sutcliffe et  al., 2016), as the term ‘mindfulness meditation’ is applied to a broad range of practices and exercises, including two-minute smartphone applications, weekend meditation retreats, and a discipline requiring years of practice. Mindfulness also refers to very different cultural contexts and practices – from a life-changing exercise to a stress management programme designed to meet the needs of a work organisation. Therefore, it is not surprising that an increasing number of researchers now discuss mindfulnesses (Good et  al., 2016). Consequently, research on mindfulness has expanded across several fields; however, few studies have approached mindfulness from a workplace perspective (Dane & Brummel, 2014), and even fewer have employed an ethnographic approach (Karjalainen et  al., 2021). To fill this gap in the research, this study utilises ethnographic data gathered in a multinational business organisation that had launched a mindfulness programme in an effort to enhance the productivity and well-being of its highly skilled knowledge professionals. Mindfulness is attributed with helping practitioners concentrate and remain attentive and thus be more present in the moment (Hyland et al., 2015). Consequently, the business world has demonstrated an enthusiasm for mindfulness by presenting it as a tool to improve employee productivity and work ability (e.g., Hülsheger et al., 2013); this is particularly significant when acknowledging the current stresses of working life, which are especially salient in knowledge work, such as time pressure, heavy workloads, increased demands for flexibility, multitasking requirements, and work impacting on home life. A contemporary society with neoliberal and neo-individual tendencies emphasises individual responsibility: neoliberalism produces self-managing, autonomous, and entrepreneurial subjects who, among other things, seek to improve their position through self-development and gain recognition and new opportunities, especially in working life (Gill & Scharff, 2013). Mindfulness cannot be explored in contemporary working life without contextualisation with neoliberalist (Harvey, 2007) and neo-individual (Elliott & Lemert, 2009; Elliott, 2015) trends, which emphasise individual responsibility for

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well-being and the need for self-renewal; however, mindfulness can also be related to post-secularisation and the individual search for authenticity (Taylor, 1992). Although the term ‘post-secular’ has become a widely used concept in various disciplines, including religion, sociology, and political theory, there is still a lack of consensus regarding its meaning (Beaumont et  al., 2018). Ingolf Dalferth (2010, 324) described post-secular society and its citizens as neither religious nor secular but rather unresponsive to both because these concepts are “irrelevant for their self-­ understanding and without import for the communicative, civic, legal, political, or economic operations by and through which they define themselves”. This formulation of neither-nor or both-and illustrates the societal and cultural circumstances in which the most prominent mindfulness figure Jon Kabat-Zinn (2011, 301) has been able to describe MBSR (Mindfulness Based Stress Reduction) as “sacred as well as secular”. The popularity of mindfulness reflects the rise of secular spirituality, which refers to the search for meaning, personal growth, inner peace, or a deeper inner dimension (Elkins et al., 1988). In this study, mindfulness is contextualised within this notion of secular spirituality, as workplace mindfulness tends to avoid associations with religion and religiosity. In spiritual practices involving the body – such as mindfulness – the body is a medium to access one’s authenticity, or inner ‘core’, to reflect one’s true feelings and thoughts, that is, one’s spirit (Sointu & Woodhead, 2008). Thus, spirituality draws from the idea that the human body allows privileged access to one’s spirit and emotions (McGuire, 2008; Sointu & Woodhead, 2008). These spiritualities can be seen as an intrinsic form of religion: self-responsibility is emphasised by valuing one’s own experience over tradition, appreciating internal independence and freedom, and by gaining authority to an individual’s own experiences (Woodhead & Heelas, 2000, 2–3). Self-responsibility affirms individual responsibility for all aspects of life when placed within the framework of neoliberalism, which considers market logic to be the leader of all human activities (Gill & Scharff, 2013), including well-being and health. In organisation and management research, it has been noted that new spiritualities can also emerge at work, for example, by highlighting authenticity (Fleming, 2009), self-expression (Boltanski & Chiapello, 2005), mental and spiritual practices, and ‘workplace enchantment’, all of which generate creativity and strengthen the sense of authenticity (Bell, 2008; Ogden, 2016; Suddaby et  al., 2017). In recent management research, workplace spirituality has been viewed as a resource that can help employees achieve well-­ being at work (Aboobaker et al., 2019). Well-being is a multi-faceted and complex construct (Diener, 2009) that can offer different meanings to different audiences. When examining workplace mindfulness, psychological well-being is the central focus and is defined, for example, as happiness (Pollard & Lee, 2003), life satisfaction (Seligman, 2002), or one’s capability to fulfil personal goals (Felce & Perry, 1995). In the workplace context, well-­ being is usually paired with productivity; it is measured by employee absence and employee turnover, which, in the knowledge work context, are generally caused by work-related stress (Goh et  al., 2015). This chapter demonstrates that in

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mindfulness practice, combining a quest for well-being with productivity can, however, lead to unexpected outcomes. The connection between well-being and an anticipated increase in productivity has provided a foundation for a variety of mindfulness programmes that reflect both humanistic and spiritual aspects of leadership (Islam et al., 2022). Workplace spirituality has been defined as “experiences and expressions of one’s spirituality” in the work context (Sheep, 2006), and its dimension of transcendence has been related to individual outcomes, such as life satisfaction (Zullig et al., 2006). Currently, workplace mindfulness can be viewed as the most significant trend relating to workplace spiritualities. In this post-secular and neoliberal well-being context, mindfulness has become an increasingly popular practice in workplaces and private homes. This chapter introduces the new theoretical concept of spiritual labour to examine workplace mindfulness and the blurring boundaries of work at the intersection of neoliberal and post-secular well-being practices. I argue that mindfulness practiced in work organisations can potentially become spiritual labour, a new form of work that may undermine, rather than increase, well-being. The new theoretical concept of spiritual labour emerges from the research data and is further developed in this study by utilising grounded theory. The concept of spiritual labour is presented after the descriptions of the study’s data, method, and findings.

1 Ethnographic Research on Corporate Mindfulness The ethnographic data for this study was gathered for a research project that examined the blurring boundaries of work. The fieldwork was conducted in a professional service firm that was starting the first phase of a mindfulness programme. In addition to the ethnographic data, the data included 32 interviews with the research participants, human resources personnel, and the mindfulness guide, as well as diaries written by research participants and company documents. The research data was collected in a corporation that has been described as a prototype of the neoliberal service economy (Karjalainen et al., 2015). These companies, which have also been labelled as ‘greedy’ or ‘up-or-out’ organisations (Coser, 1974), provide business-to-business services that focus, for example, on tax, accounting, law, management, acquisitions, and IT infrastructure (Karjalainen et al., 2015). As their central currency is intellectual capital and expertise (Alvesson, 2004), they adapt quickly to new methods that may improve the capability of their workforce, and they readily embrace the latest trends in work and mental well-being. The company under study provided a wide variety of organisational leisure activities; however, the mindfulness programme was their first and only activity that was primarily mental or spiritual in nature. The Mindfulness Breathing Space (MBS), as it was called, took place in the national headquarters once a week during a lunch hour. As part of the fieldwork, which lasted four months, I also attended the MBS

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and helped to organise the event by carrying yoga mats and other equipment. I also talked regularly in an informal setting with the in-house mindfulness guide. Each mindfulness session lasted half an hour: the participants used the first five minutes to settle, some lay on yoga mats while others sat on the floor or on office chairs. The mindfulness practice would then start, and the mindfulness guide would usually talk throughout the session, introducing one to two exercises. The exercises were never followed by any discussion, nor did the participants ask any questions – immediately after the MBS, the participants hurried back to their desks or meetings. In total, 51 individuals participated in the MBS, which equated to approximately one sixth of the employees located in the national headquarters. Some participants attended weekly and others less frequently, with their attendance based on their tight working schedules, their level of enthusiasm, and whether they were located in headquarters or with clients. The meditation practice varied for each session and ranged from yoga-type movement practice to breathing meditation, body-scanning, and visualisation: sometimes the participants were asked to move their hands or concentrate on their breathing, while other times they were instructed to ‘breath peace’ to different parts of their bodies or imagine themselves as mountains; all the activities were typical mindfulness exercises (Schlieter, 2017). I attended the weekly events to conduct carnal ethnography (Wacquant, 2014), an intense form of participant observation and a method that is well suited to observing spiritual-physical practices in which the human body allows privileged access to one’s spirit and emotions (McGuire, 2008; Sointu & Woodhead, 2008). As a method of inquiry, carnal ethnography facilitated utilising my own bodily experiences (such as frustration, boredom, pain, sense of peace, happiness, or a heightened sense of awareness) as part of the research data, thus helping me to understand the experiences of the other participants who were also embarking on mindfulness practice (Wacquant, 2014). The discomfort of sitting still, the wandering mind, and the boredom as well as the tranquillity, joy, and bodily awareness were all part of the experience; these thoughts, emotions, and sensations offered a foundation for gaining first-hand knowledge of the mental and bodily aspects of mindfulness meditation, as an embodied understanding contributes to the construction of knowledge (Turner, 2000). I had been meditating for several years prior to the fieldwork; therefore, the experience was somewhat familiar. However, I had never participated in corporate mindfulness practice in a workday office setting. Interviews were conducted with human resources personnel, the mindfulness guide, and the employees who frequently participated in the MBS.  The study entailed 25 individual face-to-face interviews, each lasting between 45 and 100 min, and seven individual interviews conducted via e-mail. The research participants were knowledge professionals in various fields within the professional service firm, and the group was balanced in terms of career type (consultancy or business support), career stage (entry level, lower management, or higher management), and age (under 30, between 30–40, and over 40; these categories were the most relevant in the career-oriented, up-or-out-focused organisation, as there were very few employees over 50). Of the 51 participants, only two were male and both were unwilling to

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continue after their first mindfulness session. This gender ratio was not entirely unexpected given the recent research that has shown ‘new age’ organisational programmes often contain gender discourses that reflect gendered power difference (Zaidman et al., 2009). In addition, contemporary holistic spiritual practices both legitimise and contest traditional discourses and practices of femininity (Sointu & Woodhead, 2008, 73). The interviews focused on the reasons and background regarding the participant’s interest in mindfulness, their expectations, fears, and doubts, the prospect of regular practice, and the problems they believed could be addressed with mindfulness. Furthermore, the interviews included questions on worldviews, spirituality, and authenticity. The Collaborative Interactive Action Research (CIAR) method (Bailyn & Fletcher, 2007) was adopted to discuss personal questions: second interviews were employed as part of the preliminary analysis; therefore, there was an opportunity to elaborate on the themes and progression of the MBS and the participant’s own practice. The research participants kept a semi-structured mindfulness diary in which they reflected on the following key points: (a) How often did they think about mindfulness during the day; (b) Did they engage in any kind of formal or informal mindfulness activity; (c) How did they feel about the mindfulness activities; (d) Did they experience any problems with practice; and (e) Other thoughts on mindfulness. Eleven research participants returned the diary. Finally, the company material on the mindfulness programme was requested from internal communications and the mindfulness guide, this included the mindfulness material and information that had been distributed via the organisation’s intranet. The analytical starting point for the study was the view of organisational reality as discursively constructed (e.g., Jarzabkowski et al., 2010). The multiple data gathered through multifaceted research methods was analysed by triangulation of data, ethnographic analysis in the case of fieldwork (carnal ethnography and unofficial discussions), and discourse analysis (Potter & Whetherell, 2001) for the acquired texts (interviews, mindfulness diaries, and company material). In the absence of a suitable theory, grounded theory was utilised in the analysis (Glaser & Strauss, 1967). The constructionist approach included the thematic coding and theorisation of the data, which was conducted by moving iteratively between data and theory to formulate a group of evolving conceptual categories; this method allowed for the development of a new theoretical concept while maintaining a close adherence to the data (Charmaz, 2006). Thus, the idea of spiritual labour emerged from the analysis: this new concept combines theories of emotional work in organisational studies with debates on post-secularisation and new spiritualities in the sociology of religion and, more broadly, in the study of religion.

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2 Mindfulness in the Corporate World The analysis revealed four themes that highlight the dynamics of well-being and productivity and operate at both the individual level and the level of organisational culture and practice: holistic worker, coaxing and controlling spirituality, spiritual solutions for work-related problems, and spirituality as performance.

2.1 Holistic Worker The MBS was the first extra-curricular activity of a spiritual nature offered by the organisation, despite the provision of other programmes that also focused on the body, such as a running club. The human resources manager, who had only recently joined the company, provided an explanation: “There is lots of physical exercise, but I saw immediately that this is a house of professionals, and the other piece is missing. And I was just thinking about yoga, meditation, Pilates… until I learned about mindfulness and saw that this is even better”. The human resources manager regarded mindfulness as spiritual, an ‘other piece’ that complemented the well-­ being services that were already provided by the company. The goal was to create holistic workers: “I have a holistic perspective, the whole well-being”. The human resources manager explained why the company supported the development of holistic employees: “We are offering this to people – instead of burnout or stress or any problems – we want to bring a little happiness to their lives, presence, to help them in their work, so that they would be present in the moment and not try to do ten things, and also that it would show in leisure and elsewhere”. Holistic thinking was readily manifested in the mindfulness lessons: in addition to breathing meditation, the meditation alternated between body meditation, mountain meditation, and peace meditation. The mindfulness guide explained the motivation for this holistic approach: All those people who attended [mindfulness class] are women who demand a lot from themselves, who know they want to take care of themselves in many ways, and who have recognised how the hassle affects their daily lives. They now have a really easy tool for everyday to enhance their well-being for their colleagues, for themselves, and for their home. Finding balance, that’s what they want.

The holistic perspective in human resources management is based on the idea that spirituality is a part of the employee and that it is possible to incorporate this resource into work and hence into the employer’s resources. The company believed that improvements in employees’ resilience, concentration, and acceptance would benefit work performance. The goal was to harness an employee’s spirituality and well-being as a tool to improve efficiency and performance. Thus, the company offered mindfulness as a method to help employees operate more efficiently in a fast-paced work environment.

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The following theme addresses the perspective of employees as holistic beings whose spirituality is a resource for the organisation; the provocation and management of spirituality becomes a central focus as spirituality is made a visible part of organisational practice.

2.2 Coaxing and Controlling Spirituality While workplace mindfulness coaxes spirituality in multiple ways, it is simultaneously controlled, as spirituality remains a controversial topic in organisations. Spirituality is first addressed in organisations by utilising the rhetoric from both science and religion to move between potentially opposing dialogues (Karjalainen et al., 2021). The relationship between mindfulness and Buddhism is multifaceted and even controversial, and the relationship between mindfulness and spirituality is at the center of the dispute. For some, mindfulness is the core of the Buddhist meditation tradition; however, many of the current forms of mindfulness are distorted because they do not adhere to the fundamental belief system of Buddhism (Purser & Milillo, 2015). In addition, others view mindfulness and Buddhism as two distinct practices: while Buddhism has inspired the initial concept, mindfulness has developed as a completely separate exercise of consciousness (Brown & Ryan, 2003). This ambiguity was also reflected in the MBS, which combined scientific and religious rhetoric. The mindfulness guide relied on both science and Buddhism, instrumentalising both as she praised the mindfulness of “two and a half thousand years of Buddhist monks’ product development” and referenced Buddha, the Dalai Lama, and the medical studies on mindfulness. This position appears to define mindfulness in the business world: mindfulness is justified by academic research but is also aligned with ‘Asian spirituality and wisdom’ (Karjalainen, 2016). Western science carries a powerful legitimating force that may be used to validate a practitioner’s self-cultivation and self-improvement projects (Brown & Leledaki, 2010). Mindfulness thus becomes an ‘empty signifier’ (Islam et al., 2022), a code that can be applied to almost any concept (Bodhi, 2011), including spirituality, well-being, and productivity. Departing from a spiritual focus midway through an exercise is the second way to both provoke and simultaneously shun spirituality. Buddhist meditation consists of several types of exercises that are considered important (Goldstein, 2003). Compassion is a central element of Buddhism, but it was almost entirely absent from the MBS. When I asked the mindfulness guide about compassion, she mentioned metta bhavana – a ‘loving kindness’ – meditation, which is a popular form of Buddhist meditation that is also practiced in the West (Gethin, 1998). She said that she would not present metta bhavana in the current sessions: “Maybe later. There are three kinds of people: those who understand the idea, those who start crying, and those who get angry. I don’t want any of that in this milieu”. The halfway-­ approach was also reflected in her explanations of her teaching method: “Then I should go to theory and content and tell people what we really do. Yes, it

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[mindfulness] comes from Buddhism, but since I just teach beginners, I’m not familiar with it yet”. The mindfulness guide rejected the idea of telling ​​ the participants what “we really do”. I also asked the mindfulness guide what she thought of mindfulness exercises that focus on concentration but ignore compassion. Her response aptly described the complex relationship between mindfulness and spirituality in the business world: According to research, one can go only so far with it [mindfulness without compassion]. But somehow the compassion rises when your frontal cerebral cortex on the left lobe… when you develop better connections. Then empathy strengthens naturally. Desire towards it comes naturally, but how to support it? So [compassion] exercises can be given to them to practise at home.

The guide’s teaching drew and relied on Buddhism and thus provoked references to spirituality and religion. Paradoxically, she also shunned spiritual and religious aspects by departing from a spiritual focus halfway through the sessions, which left the participants insecure about the context. Simultaneously, the guide relied on the scientific interpretation of compassion, recognised the need to support it, and was ready to provoke this type of spirituality in a working life context; however, she did not want to include compassion in the mindfulness classes. When I ask the human resources manager if they intended to address metta bhavana, she quickly responded in a small voice: “I think we’re going to take a little of it as well”. (Buddhist) Compassion seems to be a controversial topic within human resources management that is repeatedly highlighted but frequently set aside. The third way to both coax and shun spirituality is to ignore the emotions and experiences that may arise when spirituality is provoked. In one session, the mindfulness guide led the participants through a self-compassion meditation, which is somewhat similar to metta bhavana. The following extract from the field diary described the event: The second meditation is a compassion meditation, where we first imagine a spot of refuge where we have a good and safe feeling (fireplace, meadow, cottage, grandma’s place) and then someone who is compassionate, kind, and loving towards us. We were to imagine a beloved friend, mother, Buddha, god, dog, or some abstract thing, for example. These were mentioned in this order. (Field Journal)

Afterwards, the guide explained that she avoids compassion exercises because of the reactions of the participants: “That’s why I didn’t go to metta bhavana, I made a lighter version. I’ve seen how some have tears in their eyes, but I have not in any way got involved in it”. The guide was motivated to keep the exercises light: “These have been light exercises; it can be tough to get back to work fast after a long meditation”. Spirituality in a workplace context was provoked, shunned, and controlled, often simultaneously, as although the organisation believed in the effectiveness of mindfulness, they did not want to manage every potential outcome. After examining the organisational level of spiritual labour – viewing employee’s spirituality as an asset that can be introduced and utilised in an organisational setting – we turn to the use of mindfulness as an individual solution for work-related problems that is structured by an organisation to enhance employees’ well-being.

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2.3 Spirituality as a Solution for Work-Related Problems Time pressure and interruptions were particular challenges for the professionals in the organisation, and the human resources manager considered mindfulness offered a solution: “It has always been, for as long as I have been in the business world, so in every company it is ‘how do I manage my time, how can I control my time’. Now this question comes in another form”. The human resources manager had already spoken about spirituality and compassion and now regarded mindfulness as a technique that could improve employee effectiveness. Agnes,1 39, explained that it is common to seek help for working life pressures in mindfulness: Yes, these pressures come from reconciling work and home, lack of time, and… If I were a person who could do one thing at a time or I would have a job I could leave behind after day’s work. But I have a hundred lists and 13 things swirling in my head all the time. I don’t know if I would need mindfulness if the job was different.

Agnes further discussed the reasons that led her to participate in the mindfulness programme: “I was half present. My work was about meetings one after another, the cellphone beeping, someone asking for advice and you are already thinking about the next meeting… How much time and energy get wasted in this, it would be easier if one focused properly”. The goal of mindfulness was practical: to solve the problems caused by constant interruptions and the need to hurry. Seeking help at work and finding ways to control one’s mind were given as other reasons to participate in the mindfulness classes. Mid-level manager Tina, 36, described her motivation: “If I can change something about myself – that I will stay calm without getting nervous or stressed. If I can handle things internally. Concentration and tranquility could support all activities”. Tina believed that through individual growth, specifically self-control and self-transformation, she could improve her work and her home life. Vera, a consultant who had already experienced two burnouts before the age of 30, explained how she was trying to reduce her exhaustion through meditation: “Last year I just noticed the exhaustion and started doing meditation to help with burnout. You go into the tunnel, and you don’t remember anymore what is a feeling, what is normal, what is life. I began mindfulness because of my job, so that I could cope”. For Vera, meditation became a question of survival, while consultant Lisa, 25, sought skills that could help with control: “Controlling my mind. I would like to work more consciously and with more focus. I could tune my brain”. Lisa’s colleague Helena, 26, shared similar thoughts: “I hope mindfulness will make working more effective, tools for controlling my mind. [---] In a way, I would train myself”. Although Vera was focused on well-being, both approaches – meditating to survive and tuning the brain for higher performance levels – address organisational-level pressures through individual ‘choices’ that utilise spiritual exercise to cope with work-life demands. Thus, mindfulness is seen as a technique to control and train oneself to fit in and build resilience at work.

 Pseudonyms have been used to protect the anonymity of the research participants.

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Mindfulness is often presented as a solution to the many problems encountered in working life (Wilson, 2014); spirituality thus becomes subordinate to the results of mindfulness, such as the acceptance of circumstances, improved concentration, or increased work efficiency due to overcoming work-related exhaustion. Workplace mindfulness is utilised as a tool to address two different challenges in working life: first, concentration may improve managing the more practical disruptions caused by time pressure and interruptions, and second, one’s ability to cope and survive working life may be increased by creating a calm mind.

2.4 Spirituality as Performance The fourth theme in this chapter discusses spirituality as a performance. The company’s culture of performance and achievement was reflected in the guide’s views on mindfulness: “I believe that if everyone of us could work on acceptance, that we could accept ourselves as what we are, here, in this position, that when I try my best all the time, that is enough.” The mindfulness guide continued to explain her perspective: “There are thousands of studies, oh my God, starting from skin diseases. Mindfulness is such an easy tool. So, I believe that people will stop their laziness and start working on themselves”. This view of mindfulness was also reflected in the reactions of the MBS participants. Paula, 37, working in business support, described the difficulties she encountered when performing spirituality in mindfulness classes: “You shouldn’t expect too much, you shouldn’t ask yourself why everyone else seems to be relaxed while my thoughts keep swirling?” Agnes identified a similar problem: “I keep paying attention to others, I need more peace around me to do this”. An exercise that was meant for perceiving and acceptingly one’s own mind in a non-judgmental manner became a disruptive moment of comparison with the performances of others. “I’m trying too much”, Paula explained, recognising the paradox between the comparison of trying too hard and the fundamental concept of mindfulness. Vera described how the performance-emphasising corporate culture penetrates mindfulness meditation: “You once failed in meditation, or you didn’t fail, but you couldn’t concentrate, so you describe yourself as crap in meditating”. The company’s human resources department admitted to hiring overachievers who are primarily goal oriented. This personality trait was also evident in the company’s meditation classes, sometimes with rather paradoxical results. The following example illustrates one result of provoking and practicing spirituality in a workplace context. A mindfulness breathing exercise involved slowly and repeatedly counting to 10; the goal was to observe the wandering mind and carefully bringing it back, over and over again, to a central focus. Lena explained how she understood the practice: It was terribly easy to concentrate on it today when we were breathing, so probably 30 times I counted to 10 without having any problem with waning. I probably thought about having lunch once throughout the whole thing. This seems terribly easy, what is the point?

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Lena was so eager to achieve her goal that she appeared to miss the idea of ​​the exercise. Meditation can become a new achievement that must be accomplished with high scores, while the essence of meditation (a non-judgmental focus on the mind, senses, feelings, and the environment) is forgotten or never understood. Vera explained how she sought help from spiritual growth in order to fight burnout: “For two or three years, I did an awful lot of spiritual growth just because I had to, otherwise my head would explode.” She continued by describing the complex relationship she had established between spirituality and performance: The mind is tough, you cannot set goals for it. I read a lot and thought about things, but it was always a project. I always order tons of books, I organise it, I set up all the stuff, and then I do it. And when I start feeling like you've done it, even that you can't measure it, I start to get bored. Then I take another project.

Vera performed spirituality and then suffered from the fact that spiritual growth is not easily measurable. The company recognised that it recruited competitive over-­ achievers, but still decided to offer a mindfulness programme to help with work-­ related problems. However, competitive individualistic achievers may misdirect the purpose of mindfulness and be inclined toward over-achieving spirituality.

3 Conclusion: Spiritual Labour This study sought to introduce a new concept, spiritual labour. The ethnographic data did not easily align with any existing theory; thus, grounded theory was utilised to develop a concept that could interpret the findings. Four themes illustrating different aspects of spiritual labour were identified in the data. First, ‘holistic worker’ operates at the organisational level: spirituality is viewed as an essential part of the employee that can be harnessed for work-related purposes. Spirituality becomes both a form of labour and a trait of workers and is thus acquired as a resource that can be utilised by the organisation. Second, once an employee’s spirituality is viewed as a company asset, the organisation can progress to identifying the spirituality of its employees as company property that can be provoked and controlled. Organisations are thus required to manage and regulate spiritual labour, as only a certain kind of spirituality is appropriate in the workplace context. Third, mindfulness can be offered as a tool to enhance well-being and productivity by resolving work-related problems, such as stress, the feeling of being rushed, and a lack of concentration. Organisational-level problems are transformed into spiritual labour as individual’s are assigned with the task of finding solutions through spirituality. Finally, these three aspects of spiritual labour collectively lead to the view of spirituality as performance, a practice in which goal-oriented overachievers try to score highly in mindfulness, transforming it into a work task and thus turning mindfulness into spiritual labour. The ‘greedy’ and ‘up-or-out’ culture of the industrial sector, which emphasises individual performance and comparison, reinforces the

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performative culture (Coser, 1974). In this context, spirituality becomes an accomplishment. The notion of spiritual labour is derived from emotional labour, a widely accepted concept in organisational studies that was originally conceived by Arlie Hochschild (1983), who suggested that contemporary service economies commodify emotions in the same way that factories previously utilised physical labour. Hochschild (1983, 7) defined emotional labour as “the management of feeling to create a publicly observable facial and bodily display”, focusing on the internal aspects and management of workers’ emotions. Spiritual labour, however, has not been widely studied, although it is easily identified in current work cultures. Tammy McGuire (2010) opened the discussion with a study on the spiritual work of parish school employees, but the ideas have not been fully developed (Byrne et al., 2011). In order to fill this research gap, this chapter introduced the concept of spiritual labour. Spiritual labour refers to the harnessing of employees’ spirituality for work-­ related purposes, and it can involve several aspects, such as appropriating spirituality as a workplace asset, coaxing, controlling, and managing spirituality, instrumentalising spirituality in the work context, and employees’ overachievement of spirituality. Ultimately, the goal is a positive end result for the organisation – for example, enhanced occupational well-being, work performance, work efficiency, or resilience or a reduction in exhaustion. Mindfulness discourses have become widespread in contemporary society and are prominent within companies (Good et al., 2016; Purser, 2019). Workplace mindfulness practice is perhaps best described as a form of secular spirituality, as the aim is an individual quest for personal growth – a search for meaning or inner peace – rather than any pronounced form of religion or spirituality. When practised in an organisational context and within the sphere of secular spirituality, mindfulness may more readily turn into spiritual labour. The neoliberal organisational life of contemporary knowledge professionals, which emphasises the individual’s need for self-renewal by making each worker responsible for their own well-being, is likely to turn certain aspects of life and selfhood into a form of work, such as emotional (Hochschild, 1983), aesthetic (Warhurst & Nickson, 2009), or social labour (Fleming, 2009). It has been claimed that the neo-liberal market logic roughly guides all aspects of social life (Esposito, 2015). Emotions have long been recognised as an essential aspect in one’s employment, and now it appears that well-being of the mind (Cederström & Spicer, 2015) is also entering the sphere of work. This observation resonates with an emerging trend that examines well-being of the mind as a form of secular spirituality (see e.g. Harrison, 2017), as attested in the recent growth of mindfulness literature, gurus, and workshops. Within the alliance of neoliberalism and secular spirituality, the neoliberal self tends to seek practices that promise enhancements and general improvements in all areas of life, including work performance and the ability to always be consciously present in an era of multiple electronic devices and digital interruptions. As the neoliberal self reaches for the seemingly appropriate aims of spirituality and well-­ being of the mind, it is not surprising that this effort can turn into a form of labour. Spirituality and well-being then become tasks among other tasks, aspects of life that

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must be taken care of alongside keeping fit, being a good spouse and parent, excelling at work, and living a ‘full life’. In workplace mindfulness programmes, psychological well-being is the most common focal point, whether it is verbalised as life satisfaction, happiness, or achieving one’s goals (Decuypere et al., 2021; Hougaard et al., 2016). Furthermore, well-being at work is generally discussed in the context of productivity as the ultimate goal (Caring-Lobel, 2016; Purser & Milillo, 2015). This study demonstrated how this understanding of secular spirituality, when paired with the corporate world’s understanding of well-being, generates surprising outcomes, as mindfulness is turned into a form of extra work, that is, spiritual labour. Thus, this chapter introduced a new area of research into the study of spiritualities. As a new concept, spiritual labour identifies a phenomenon in which spirituality becomes performance and is acquired as an organisational resource; however, more research is required to broaden the understanding of spiritual labour by utilising different contexts and data. The current study was conducted in a business world, but it is likely that spiritual labour is also found in other areas of working life. Future research should examine the concept of spiritual labour in different work environments, from companies through to public organisations and single entrepreneurs. It would also be beneficial to study how the concept of spiritual labour is employed in organisations that have explicit religious affiliations, as it is unlikely that spiritual labour is limited to mindfulness. The concept of spiritual labour therefore requires further evaluation and development; in particular, future research should utilise empirical data obtained in different work environments. The coexistence of post-secularisation and neoliberalism enables and supports the flourishing industry of workplace mindfulness (see Bell et al., 2020; LoRusso, 2017). Focusing on a post-secular and neoliberal context, this chapter combined the analysis of multidimensional ethnographic data on mindfulness with established concepts drawn from the study of religion and organisational research. The findings aligned workplace mindfulness practice with spiritual labour within this broad theoretical framework. As cultural and societal developments, post-secularisation and neoliberalism have facilitated the popularisation of mindfulness programmes; thus, organisations are able to harness employees’ spirituality as a resource under the guise of enhancing well-being. Acknowledgements  I wish to thank all the anonymous reviewers of this chapter for their productive comments. Funding Details  This research was funded by the Strategic Research Council at the Academy of Finland under Grant 292883. Disclosure Statement  No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author.

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References The Data Interviews: transcription of tape-recorded interviews (25) and email interviews (7), year 2015; Mindfulness diaries written by research participants (11), year 2015; Field notes, field diary, and correspondence with the company, 2014–2017; Corporate material (advertisements, research contracts, etc.), 2014–2015.

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Mira Karjalainen is adjunct professor in Study of Religions at University of Helsinki and adjunct professor in Management and Leadership at Jyväskylä University School of Business and Economics. Previously she has conducted a post-doctorate in Management and Organisation at Hanken School of Economics, PhD in Study of Religions at University of Helsinki, and postgraduate studies in Anthropology at Yale University. Her current work as Head of stakeholder relations at WeAllFinland, funded by Strategic Research Council (WeAll 292883), links questions of workplace spirituality, well-being and blurring boundaries of work with social sustainability in working life.  

The Entanglement of Spirituality, Wellbeing and ‘Spiritual Economy’ in Brazil: The Shift from ‘Living Well Together’ to ‘Leading a Good Life’ Bettina E. Schmidt

Abstract  The traditional discourse of wellbeing in Latin America reflects the indigenous understanding of wellbeing as ‘living well together’. In this sense wellbeing is defined as a harmonious relationship between human beings, nature and the wider cosmos. Recently, however, this traditional concept is impacted by a shift to taking control of one’s life and the imperative of leading a ‘good life’. Spiritual practices that are seen as increasing a sense of wellbeing have become a commodity. This chapter looks at the impact of these changes on the perception of wellbeing. The focus is on Brazil which went through a wide reaching social and economic transformation in the recent decades that led to growing secularisation and consequently individualisation. By comparing different perceptions of wellbeing, the chapter illustrates the impact of neoliberal thinking in Brazil. It argues that while the traditional perception of wellbeing as relational is still widespread throughout Brazil, there is a growing trend to a neoliberal perception of wellbeing which promotes the privatization of religion and health. Keywords  Brazil · Spiritism / Kardecism · Pentecostalism · African-derived religions · Spiritist Healing · Complementary health · Wellbeing Brazil represents an interesting case study that highlights the ambivalent entanglement of politics, economics and religion or spirituality. It shows how neoliberalism impacts on the perception of wellbeing, which is shifting from a more traditional understanding towards one influenced by neoliberalism. For a major part of its existence, Catholicism was Brazil’s only official religion, i.e., from 1500 until the proclamation of the Republic in 1889 which was a historical milestone as the new constitution proclaimed the separation of Church and State (Montero, 2016: 379). During the twentieth century the relationship between the Catholic Church and politics in Brazil shifted further apart. Until the beginning of the 1960s the extent of the Catholic religious homogeneity in Brazilian society remained enormous, partly due B. E. Schmidt (*) University of Wales Trinity Saint David, Lampeter, Wales, UK e-mail: [email protected] © The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2022 G. Mossière (ed.), New Spiritualities and the Cultures of Well-being, Religion, Spirituality and Health: A Social Scientific Approach 6, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-06263-6_8

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to the weak civil society that led to 21 years of military dictatorship (1964–1985). During the phase of democratic abertura (opening) that culminated in the presidential election in 1985, the Catholic Church played a crucial role. However, the abertura, failed to deliver the much-needed social transformation. The re-­democratization initiated even a severe economic crisis that led to hyperinflation and pulled the country into recession. The government responded with privatisation, deregulation of labour markets and opening to foreign investment and ownership of local industries (Roberts, 2015: 1669). This dramatic turn to neoliberalism led to a recovery of the inflation but without social improvements. Instead, the social inequalities increased with a rise in unemployment and falling living standards. The neoliberal reforms led even to a shift of the religious sector which runs counter, as Mariano and Oro highlight (Mariano & Oro, 2016: 363), to the wide-reaching expectation of secularization and privatisation of religion (Casanova, 1994). At a time when the wider public did not see any improvement but an increase in social injustice, the Vatican even turned publicly away from the ideas of Liberation Theology. As a result, Brazilians turned in growing numbers to Protestant movements, in particular those that supported neoliberal reforms (Roberts, 2015: 1670). Montero even argues that the secularization of Brazilian society resulted, at least partly, from the actions of ecclesiastic institutions (Montero, 2016: 378). In addition, the 1988 Constitution encouraged other religions to become involved in the political decision-making process, especially the Evangelical groups but also, as Montero writes, Spiritism and African derived religions (Montero, 2016: 379–280). The result of the increased visibility of other religions led to a newly formed positive perception of Brazil as secular society, with “the legal configuration of a religious pluralism” (Montero, 2016: 380). One of the new movements that became especially successful during this time in Brazil (and later beyond) was the Pentecostal Universal Church of the Kingdom of God (UCKG). Founded in 1975, the UCKG recruited extremely well in areas of economic deprivation, mainly due to its Prosperity Gospel which links Pentecostal faith with material prosperity. The UCKG preaches that material prosperity does not come from hard work but is the result of faith, in particular devotion to the church, particularly by donations. Roberts describes the UCKG as “highly supportive of neoliberal capitalism. The UCKG promotes an idea of individual success, albeit via conversion, instead of a more community-based ethic of rising with one’s class” (Roberts, 2015: 1671). During the 1980s and 1990s the UCKG expanded rapidly and developed to “a growing economic conglomerate including media companies, a construction company and a bank” (Roberts, 2015: 1670). The UCKG became also increasing active in local and national politics (Mariano & Oro, 2016: 366–369). Roberts even argues that the UCKG and its political success was crucial in the spread of neoliberal reforms in Brazil. Candidates supported by the UCKG backed the neoliberal governments of President Fernando Henrique Cardoso and President Lula (Freston, 2001: 53–57), that implemented and expanded the neoliberal reforms. Members of the UCKG link their wellbeing to their faith and devotion, hence see it as the result of donation. Faith becomes a “business investment with God as the majority partner” (Lima, 2012: 388). Everyone is responsible for economic success or failure, as well as health and wellbeing. Or, as St Clair writes, “the pursuit of

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business and investments ‘out in the world’ is sacralised as the duty of a saved person” (St Clair, 2017:619). Lima uses in this context the phrase ‘neoliberal cosmology’ whose principals were “adopted as central elements of Brazilian economic policy since the 1990s, [and] have been incorporated by people from the poorest sectors of urban Brazil” (Lima, 2012: 374). Research on religion and neoliberalism in Brazil usually focuses on the UCKG and other Pentecostal and neo-Pentecostal churches. However, there are other players in the spiritual economy of Brazil that have also embraced neo-liberal principals, sometimes due to financial constraints. Helmar Kurz, for instance, points out that the Hospital Espírita de Marília, located in the State of São Paulo, is part of the public health care system (Sistema Único de Saúde) but receive the majority of its funding from patients covered by private health care plans such as UNIMED (Kurz, 2017: 199). Other Spiritist centres that are often financed by voluntary contributions and the free labour of the healers and nurses, have added to their offer of Spiritist healing practices a range of alternative healing practises. The Spiritist hospital Núcleo Espírita Nosso Lar in the southern state of Santa Catarina, for instance, offers also Reiki (Aureliano, 2011), and during my visit in 2010 Yoga classes and meditation were mentioned (note in field diary, 5th May 2010). These alternative providers are usually overlooked in the growing research field of neoliberalism and religion though their significance especially as complementary health provider is confirmed by scholars (Toniol, 2018). Contrary to the expected secularisation of society due to neoliberalism, complementary health therapies based on religion and spirituality have become incorporated in the health market which has become increasingly diverse over the last decades, in particular since the issue of the Plano Nacional de Práticas Integrativas e Complementares (PNPIC) in 2006 which made a range of therapies available under the public health plan SUS (Sistema Único de Saúde) (Aureliano, 2011: 56).1 But hand in hand with the privatisation of religion came a privatisation – and diversification – of health. Privatisation of health puts the emphasis on the patient who is responsible not only for the selection of appropriate therapies but also for maintaining a healthy lifestyle. While PNPIC increased the range of therapies covered by the public health care plan, access and funding are problematic. Kurz mentions, for instance, that patients under SUS are covered just for a maximum of 30 days in the hospital while private health care plans do not have the same restriction (Kurz, 2017: 199). He also observed much longer waiting times in the SUS section of the hospital in comparison to the private patients. The SUS units suffer under lack of funding and can be maintained only due to donations and the income of the private health care sections in the hospitals. As a result, the treatment of patients is often reduced to pharmaceutical and occupational therapy (Kurz, 2018: 41).  Aureliano also points out that the integration of complementary practices started even before the launch of PNPIC and mentions the recognition of homeopathy by the Federal Council of Medicine in the 1980s. However, it was only in 1999 that homeopathy together with acupuncture were added to the SUS (Aureliano, 2011: 183). 1

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This chapter looks at the impact of these changes on the perception of wellbeing. Referring to data derived from a larger project on wellbeing and spirituality that studied people working in the health sector as well as people identifying themselves as spiritual (Schmidt, 2020) the chapter discusses how individuals perceive wellbeing.2 By comparing individual perceptions of wellbeing, the chapter illustrates the impact of neoliberal thinking in Brazil with excerpts from two online surveys and several in-depth interviews conducted in Brazil in 2018 and two earlier interviews that were part of a research on mediumship, conducted in Brazil in 2010 (Schmidt, 2016). The chapter argues that the traditional perception of wellbeing as relational, derived from an indigenous understanding of the world and illustrated by the phrase “living well together”, is still widespread throughout Brazil. It refers to a way of thinking that cherishes the relationship of humans and with Mother Earth and the cosmos. However, despite of its ongoing significance in Brazil, the chapter reflects on the growing trend to a neoliberal perception of wellbeing which stresses the responsibility of everyone for their health and wellbeing and promotes the privatization of religion and health. The chapter puts both perceptions of wellbeing in contrast to each other and argues that these contrasting perceptions of wellbeing as living well together and as leading a good life demonstrates the vivid entanglement of spirituality and wellbeing in the twenty-first century in Brazil.

1 Wellbeing as “Living Well Together” The predominant perception of wellbeing in Latin America is usually illustrated with the phrase buen vivir, translated literally as ‘good living’ or ‘living well’ though with the meaning of ‘living well together’ (Fatheuer, 2011). Rodríguez describes ‘living well’ as “a holistic concept rooted on principles and values such as harmony, equilibrium and complementarity, which from an indigenous perspective must guide the relationship of human beings with each other and with nature (or Mother Earth) and the cosmos” (Rodríguez, 2016: 279, endnote 1). Other common terms refer to “living in harmony” (vida en armonía), living a full life (vida plena), or even coexisting well (buen convivir) (Villalba, 2013: 1429). While these terms derive from Andean cosmology, my research confirmed a similar understanding in Brazil that stresses the relation to humans as well as other than human entities such as God, spirits of deceased or African deities, the orixás. The data derived from an online survey in which I asked participants how they would define or describe wellbeing. Later, I discussed my findings with some participants in in-depth interviews. But I start here with information from the online survey. Allowing the participant to write as much as they want, I asked them to describe what wellbeing (bem estar) means to them. The vast majority mentioned in their

 Excerpts from the surveys are referenced with a number, age and gender while the interviewees are identified only with an alias that reflects their gender self-identification. 2

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replies in one way or another the importance of being healthy, mental, and physically, or feelings such as being satisfied with one’s life, happy, or in tune with the world. These descriptions of wellbeing represent quite standard definitions. More revealing for me was when I realised how many of the participants referred in their answers to the need for community and relations. One respondent wrote, for instance, that “Wellbeing is the feeling of belonging to the whole and that everything is connected. When we understand and practice it, we feel that we are part of something bigger. By knowing this, daily problems become small.” (#75, Brazil, 54 years old, male) Another one wrote that “Wellbeing is something that gets us in peace with ourselves... with nature… with others and with God, at last is happiness and joy different from the one we usually feel because it lasts.” (#7, Brazil, 50 years old, female). Harmony was also mentioned, for instance, wellbeing “is to feel happy and satisfied with what one has. The harmony with people and the peace should walk hand in hand.” (# 29, Brazil, 20 years old, male) Another wrote that wellbeing is “Physical, mental and emotional health. Inner peace even being in a disturbing environment.” (# 2, Brazil, 41 years old, female) Another one described wellbeing as “State of full satisfaction, balance and harmony between body, mind and spirit.” (#3, Brazil, 49  years old, male) Several referred to relations or connections with others or mentioned explicitly the need for being in a community, either with other humans or God, spirits or the orixás. One female participant described wellbeing as “Wellbeing is to feel well with oneself and at the same time to know that one is not alone. It is to feel supported although we don’t see those who take care of us.” (# 31, Brazil, 45 years old, female). Or someone else wrote that wellbeing is “Communion with God, with others and with oneself.” (#9, Brazil, 59 years old, male) Relationship can also be seen with nature as a source of happiness. One participant wrote for instance that “Wellbeing is something that gets us in Peace with ourselves... with nature… with others and with God, at last is happiness and joy different from the one we usually feel because it lasts.” (#7, Brazil, 50 years old, female). These excerpts illustrate the widespread understanding of wellbeing as “living well together”. It confirmed what I found out in the literature about wellbeing in Latin America (Schmidt, 2020; Rodríguez, 2016) as well as my insight into Brazil from my previous research (Schmidt, 2016). However, I had become suspicious of the persistence of the traditional perception of wellbeing in discussions with people working in the health sector in Brazil in previous visits to the country. While it is evident that though the role of the Catholic Church is diminishing, religion – in various ways – is still very dominant in all sectors of society. But how do the recent political, economic, and social changes impact on the perception of wellbeing? In a different survey, targeting directly people working in the health sector, I noticed a stronger shift to a secular society that would also confirm the spread of neoliberal ideas. All respondents made a firm distinction between their personal faith and their workplace. Spirituality or even any reference to the divine had no place at work, even when they self-identified as religious or spiritual. The participants of this survey saw the health sector as essentially secular and argued that they are required (by law or at least by their professional standards) not to discuss faith with their patients. Some would not even speak about religion with their colleagues in order not to

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become ridiculed or dismissed as strange. This strong identification of the health sector as secular was also shared with their patients. Despite referring in their description of wellbeing to more than physical health, most people who see themselves as spiritual would not discuss their faith with anyone in the health sector, whether it is nurses, doctors and even therapists, usually because of fear of being seen as crazy though sometimes also because they also differentiate between personal faith and the professional culture of the health sector (see Schmidt, 2020). There is therefore a clash between the perception of wellbeing and the expectation about treatments. While patients described a holistic perception of wellbeing as more than physical health, people working in the health sector preferred to ignore the non-physical dimension of wellbeing. In my in-depth interviews I discussed this contradiction from different angles. The psychologists among my interviewees usually expressed an openness to discuss faith with patients though they also explained how careful they had to be in order not to break professional ethical standards. One interviewee, a Jungian psychologist, was outspokenly critical towards colleagues for ignoring faith instead of using it as powerful allies. He said that “a person who has faith will follow treatments much as they are more attentive to health and follow instructions along with their prayers and everything. But for many doctors, the question does not enter the treatment of their patients because they do not see a connection between physical illness and religion. Different from a healer [i.e., spiritual healer], a doctor starts from a scientific concept. … though it interferes a lot in their practice and in psychotherapy …” (Artur, app. 60 years old, male, interview on 1st August 2018). Some health professionals said that they would wait for their patients to mention their beliefs before showing them that they could speak about faith without being dismissed. Nevertheless, most of the interviewees working in the health or social sector – even those with a necklace with a small cross as part of their daily clothing – insisted that they would be not allowed to speak about belief at work. One interviewee referred to the scientific framework and said “the subjects that we study are very strong in the field of science. We have a little bit of ethics and talking to patients but not much more. I think even though I’m really religious and practice Spiritism and I have friends that are atheist so don’t believe in God, we have the same formation, we are taught the same things in our medical field” (Nadine, 31 years old, female, interview on 17th August 2018). Some health professionals, in particular those with a long work experience, pointed towards the health industry (including the pharma industry) as responsible for the dismissal of a holistic understanding of wellbeing. They seemed to be unaware that some patients go a long way to find someone with whom they can discuss their beliefs as well as the adequate medical treatment that honours their faith (see Schmidt, 2021). The only medical area that was different was cancer treatment. Often seen as terminal illness, faith became more visible as one interviewee explained. She stressed the importance of religion and said that it was “really important, not only for me when I see my patients passing through hard situations, but also, I think, for my clients and their families. They speak openly about their own spirituality, they tell me, ‘I am Catholic,’ ‘I am Evangelic,’ ‘I am Spirita and I believe in this and this and this’. And they make medical decisions based on those beliefs.” (Nadine) She showed me around the

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hospital and explained how the cancer treatment unit decided to include not only relatives when discussing the treatment, but also the priest or pastor of the patient. However, when I asked whether vernacular religious leaders such as a priest or priestess of an African derived religion would be welcomed in the discussion, too, she hesitated. This was also confirmed in some of my other interviews. When I asked people involved in religious or spiritual communities whether they would consult their priests I noticed a difference depending on the religion. While everyone confirmed that they would consult their religious or spiritual guides, they were more reluctant to acknowledge leaders of African derived religious communities in a hospital, even a Catholic hospital. One of my interviewees for instance replied affirmatively when I asked whether he would ask the leader of his community to come to the hospital before surgery to pray or consult. However, when I asked whether he would introduce his priest as priest or as friend, he replied, after a slight hesitation, with “a friend” (Tomas, 70 years old, male, interview on 31st July 2018). This example illustrates another level in the discussion about wellbeing  – the differentiation between official, organisational religion and vernacular forms of lived religion or spirituality. The presence of many Catholic hospitals in Brazil indicates a co-existence between science and church, at least with regard to “acceptable” institutions such as the Catholic Church that historically founded many health institutions across Brazil. Though even here medical staff distinguish between personal faith and work ethics, praying for the wellbeing of patients seems to be acceptable and tolerated by the institution and does not need to be done discreetly. Despite of the wide-reaching compartmentalisation between private faith and professional ethics, the acceptance of Catholic prayers within health institutions points towards a wide-spread perception of wellbeing as more than physical heath, captured in the definition of wellbeing as living well together.

2 Spiritism and Its Place in the Brazilian Health Care System While the initial analysis of the data from the surveys points to the perseverance of the traditional perception of wellbeing as ‘living well together’ despite the secular framework of the health sector, my research has led to another perception of wellbeing as ‘leading a good life’ which emphasises self-study and education. Before explaining this shift, I want to give some background information about Spiritist hospitals in Brazil and their place within the Brazilian health care system. These hospitals can be found across the country. They are usually independent, supported by local Spiritists who donate time and money to the hospitals. Among the many volunteers are also nurses and medical doctors working in public hospitals. Some of the hospitals have established a link to health care plans, private and public, but some also work outside the health care system.

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Brazilian Spiritism is based largely on the teachings of Allan Kardec (1804–1869), the French founder of Kardecism whose teachings were influential for the spread of Spiritism in several Latin American countries. Kardec taught that mediumship, hence the ability to communicate with the world of the spirits, is universal but we are all born with different skills and different levels and need to develop these skills. Important cornerstones of Kardec’s teaching were therefore self-improvement and study. His teachings reached Brazil around 1880 (Lewgoy, 2006: 211) and spread quickly through the different sectors of society, mainly due to the charity work done by Spiritists. Like Kardec who saw his teaching in line with early Christian teachings, most Spiritists today do not regard Spiritism as religion but as a form of communication. However, different to Kardec Brazilian Spirititism developed early on a pragmatic, healing oriented variation though the offer of healing without a medical licence led to persecution during the first decades of the Republic (Jensen, 1999: 278). Many Spiritist centres in Brazil are part of a Kardecist federation. They offer weekly classes for people to develop their mediumship abilities which usually end with an examination before someone can work as a medium in these centres. Most meetings start with reading from one of Kardec’s books and other relevant publications. Even Spiritist centres that do not belong to the Kardecist federation offer similar classes to teach members about the background of Spiritism and way to improve themselves (Stoll, 2002). The healing orientation of Brazilian Spiritism led to the establishment of Spiritist hospitals across the country during the last decades. While they are relative newcomers on the health market, they are remarkable widespread in Brazil (Greenfield, 2008). They usually present themselves as part of the (official, i.e., secular) medical sector despite working within a different framework (Kurz, 2017). New patients have to register at the reception and to provide information about their medical condition and previous treatment, before being assessed in a holistic way. Treatment can differ from passe, a typical Spiritist treatment of energy healing, to spiritual surgery but some also offer other treatments such as massage, yoga, psychotherapy and more. Some of the Spiritist hospitals even work within the public health care system like the Hospital Espírita de Marília mentioned above (Kurz, 2018). There are also several health professionals in Brazil that practise Spiritism which has led to the formation of the Associação Médico-Espírita (the Medical-Spiritist Association). Consequently, the perception of Spiritism improved, supported also by a growing number of studies published in medical journals that highlight the significance of Spiritism for health, at least mental health (e.g., Moreira-Almeida & Lotufo Neto, 2005). In 2010, during an earlier research project on spirit possession and trance (Schmidt, 2016), I had the opportunity to visit a Spiritist hospital in the southern state of Santa Catarina. The founder and president of this hospital explained in my interview the holistic approach to healing and patient care practised in his hospital. He described the treatment as complementary to the medical treatments the patients received outside his hospital.

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“We practice complementary medicine. We observe the patients, how and what they eat, how they live, what they think and how they react. Sometimes it is a family conflict. This happens often, and then we offer special treatment … where they sit and talk to someone about what has happened …. When the problem is severe, …. we have therapists who meet the whole family of the patient. [But], finally patients have to be treated spiritually so to speak….. It takes app. 30 to 45 days with weekly treatments, two or three times. We strive to treat everything. And all this we call complementary medicine.” (interview on 5th May 2010). Another important aspect of the treatment in this hospital was the offer of lectures. The president insisted that the lectures were not religious or sermon but educational and instructive. The lectures were “more about social and scientific topics. Doctors talk about neurological problems. Other doctors talk about social problems. We bring doctors to talk about their treatments, about some diseases that have emotional consequences that people often do not know.” Education is part of the treatment but also crucial for the development of mediumship abilities of the healers. Treatment is presented as scientific, secular, not based on faith. This hospital was not the only one offering lectures though the president was perhaps the most outspoken advocate for education. Other Spiritist centres I visited in 2010 offered a similar mix of treatment and teaching. For instance, the two founders and mediums working in a small Spiritist centre in São Paulo that offered various Spiritist treatments emphasised in my interviews the importance of learning. During one visit they welcomed a speaker from the Kardecist Federation to talk to the waiting patients. However, the focus of the centre was more on the importance of self-study and self-improvement than following specific classes that are offered by the Federation (field diary, 30th March 2010). It was seen as the responsibility of every individual to expand knowledge and study. However, during my later research I realised that this need to self-improve via learning was more widespread than a feature of Spiritist centres.

3 Wellbeing as “Leading a Good Life” The emphasis on self-improvement and leading a good life became evident in the interviews I conducted in 2018, including in interviews by people not identifying with Spiritism. Already in the survey some participants wrote that one can be well without being healthy. Even terminally or chronically ill people can achieve a state of wellbeing. The interviews pushed this point forward and stressed the importance of self-improvement, constant learning and self-study. Several of my interviewees, including some working in the health system themselves, spoke about their personal journeys through different belief systems as well as healing systems that enabled them to reach a point of wellbeing. One of my interviewees, Rodrigo (41 years old, male), was trained as psychologist and worked for a while as therapist before changing job recently (interview on 3rd August 2018). He described in his interview how he moved around with his faith

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but also how he struggled. Growing up in the Catholic church he began to question his belief when he worked in the mental health sector. One reason was his understanding of Brazil as a secular country. But perhaps more importantly he struggled to make sense of having faith without any doubt (“…there were people who said that what is written in the Bible is our truth….”) while he described himself as having had a Catholic education but also that he insisted on “we have to interpret the Bible, not to lead people to fire.” By learning about other religions such as Umbanda, a popular African derived Brazilian religion, he realised that “people had a different look at the same beliefs …. By questioning everything, I changed, I began to notice many differences”. Rodrigo explained that in Brazil religion influences people in more than their faith. He mentioned “here in Brazil it depends on what religion you practice. For instance, evangelicals in Brazil have several branches. When I ask to which evangelical church you’re going, [it is like] you’re going to join a group like a political group. Then you don’t discuss belief, faith, [because] that person’s image will be God. [When I realised this] I started to question religion because it’s too complicated to treat someone in therapy, when the person has a restricted view.” On the other hand, he explained that when treating terminally ill patients, he often involved their religiosity (“if the disease is terminal, I won’t be able to heal them, then I’ll appeal to the divine. In these situations, you see more people cling to faith.”) This led him to learn about other religions. He explained that he studied Catholicism, Judaism and Islam, also some evangelical Christianity and Umbanda, the African derived religion. While he described himself as not a practitioner of any religion, he insisted that he believed in God: “I believe in a God, my belief is that we are evolving, in different reincarnations.” And then he explained that “this evolution is hierarchical, …. we are beings, who have to learn to move on to the next level and develop for ourselves. This is very difficult, because we live in a materialistic culture, we prioritize the financial part more than other parts such as our relationships.” But, as he outlined later, through our various reincarnations we learn to detach ourselves from matter. Interestingly in the survey he filled before the interview he had identified himself as practicing Umbanda. However, when asked whether he would describe himself as religious or spiritual, he used the term spiritual which he described as “a connection between you and the cosmos and/or universe. Religion, on the other hand, means belief and knowledge in a story, told by men about the divine.” (# 5, survey 1). While the interview excerpts show implicit references to Kardec’s understanding of the world and the power of reincarnation, Rodrigo never referred directly to Kardec. He was also very open in his critique of faith, in particular the way how people, as he said, “cling to faith in these extreme situations and belief that the divine will come from heaven to earth, something good will happen”. He criticized people’s passivity and that some start to attend church and to pray when they develop a problem and then stop again when they feel better. For Rodrigo the solution is self-improvement but as an ongoing enterprise. He said that he learns something every day. During the interview he mentioned, for instance, Reiki and other forms of complementary healing. While he described Brazil as secular country, he referred to the saying ‘faith moves mountains’ and acknowledged

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that “faith brings a positive thought, a frequency that improves our immune system”. While Rodrigo was not using the phrase ‘leading a good life’ he pointed towards the need to continue learning and was very critical towards a blind faith in the power of the divine. Rodrigo represents an interesting case study in so far as he works in the medical sector but has also an interest in spirituality. Despite growing up in the Catholic church and attending now Umbanda ceremonies, he sees himself as part of the secular health sector. He mentioned his interest to pursue a doctoral degree though at the time of the interview still unsuccessfully. For him, learning is part of his professional development. But it is also part of his own self-­improvement, his own sense of wellbeing. The progression from religious consultation to educational has become a feature of many religious communities in Brazil. Even African derived religious communities have started to offer training for members, sometimes even for the wider public. While religious training of novices was always part of becoming a member in these initiatory religions, this part of the training is usually restricted to novices and considered secret (and often sacred). Relatively new is the offer of classes in religious diversity, interreligious dialogue, African history and so on. In 2010, during my previous research, I visited a teaching institute for Umbanda (field diary, 6th April 2010). The Faculdade de Teologia Umbandista in São Paulo presented itself like a college or seminary with the unique purpose to train the new generation of priesthood. It was unique because Umbanda did not develop a hierarchical institution but is decentralisted in uncountable communities. The Faculdade de Teologia Umbandista was founded by Francisco Rivas Neto (Yamunisiddha Arhapiagha) in 2004 and aimed to become fully accredited by the state as a university. While it did not achieve university status, the offer of degrees in Umbanda theology made it rather unique though other communities also offered classes about their system of belief and practices and its background in order to educate the clients. For instance, the priestess mãe Maria, founder and leader of an Umbanda community in São Paulo, also offered weekly classes (field diary, 22nd March 2010). She was also politicly engaged, for instance by organising marches and participating in public events in order to improve the public awareness of Umbanda. Nevertheless, pai Rivas’ Umbanda Faculty was for a while more influential. However, when I returned to Brazil for my research on spirituality and wellbeing some years later it had changed. While the founder Umbanda merged the belief in the orixás in a rather eclectic way with the belief in karma, the teaching of Tantric chakras, and the creating of mandalas (Arhapiagha [Neto], 2003), after his death in 2018 his daughter mãeMaria Elise Rivas realigned it again stronger with Africa and to some degree Candomblé, the Brazilian religion that is perceived as more African than the others. I noticed a shift to education also in other centres that focus on healing. One interviewee even differentiated between his centre of healing and his spiritual centre, a Spiritist community. While he attended classes in the centre of healing and learnt to self-improve, he described as his spiritual home the Spiritist centre. Interestingly his centre of healing promoted itself also as a spiritual centre but with an explicit scientific framework according to its website though in my interview with one of the directors she explained that it is first and foremost a place of spiritual

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healing. People need to understand that “healing is in you. We work first with the understanding of the disease: why are you sick? You are the history of the disease and often people heal from the moment they get answers to the questions why I got sick; why did I mistreat my body, why did it take me a while to look for a doctor? Didn’t I seek the right doctor? I used drugs, I used cigarettes, alcohol? How did this disease start in me?” (Carola, 53 years old, female, interview on 17th August 2018). She explained that though many people say that they got healed, it is mainly because they changed their habits. And, she continued, they “began to believe that they are spiritual beings who came here [to earth] with a task, because [we] spiritualists believe that in every incarnation, you are born with a life plan, with a meaning, and it is this sense that you seek at all times. It is what spiritualist beings understand as a relief to existential problems.” Hence, for her it is crucial to understand why we are here, and what it is that “I need to accomplish” with my life. This emphasis on one’s own responsibility came through in various interviews, when people talked about their life, how they studied this and that, how they tried this religion or that one, before they found what suited them and what helped them ‘to lead a good life’. It was not about doing the right thing or believing in this or that and it will save you. Instead they stressed the purpose in life, that everyone needed to find their own way by learning about others. And, in the end, that being well did not mean being healthy or happy but being content with one’s life. The excerpts from the interviews illustrate the shift in the perception of wellbeing and how to achieve it. Instead of highlighting the relationship to others including non-human beings, the interviewees stressed the need to self-study and that the responsibility to improve one’s life and wellbeing depends on everyone. In addition, the interviews showed the significance of the training courses and workshops offered by spiritual communities for the individuals and their search for a better life.

4 Spiritual Economy of Brazil: The Entanglement of Spirituality and Wellbeing While the previous sections illustrated the contrasting perceptions of wellbeing and highlighted the increase of complementary health treatments linked to spiritual communities of various kinds in Brazil, this section looks at the society and argues that the post-neoliberal changes in Brazil are visible in the increasing entanglement of spirituality and wellbeing. Villalba states that “After decades in which neither state-driven import-substitution industrialisation nor neoliberal market-driven policies have been able to resolve the problems of poverty and inequality, a new post-­ neoliberal period seems to be opening in some Latin American countries. However, the significance and depth of this post-neoliberal readjustment is still undergoing construction.” (Villalba, 2013: 1428) Looking at the individual level of decision making with regard to the ‘best’ treatment or the ‘best’ way of life, reflects the personal responsiveness to these social changes. While Villalba cites Grugel and Rigirozzi and their three essential characteristics of the post-neoliberal governance

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in Latin America (“1) the ‘return of the state’ in the role of agent for development and regulator of the economy; 2) a new kind of politics responsive to local communities; and 3) the introduction of new mechanisms for social inclusion and welfare”, Villalba, 2013: 1428), I point towards another layer, that of the personal choice. I argue that the growing shift from a relational perception of wellbeing as living well together towards an individualised understanding of wellbeing as leading a good life reflects the post-neoliberal changes of Brazil during the last decade. As outlined in the opening of the chapter, neoliberalism changed Brazil’s society irreversibly. The failure to bridge the social gaps led to increasing social injustice. Or, as Diana Lima shows, the modernization of Brazil is a process of inequality (Lima, 2012: 377). While it led to economic growth, a vast sector of the society was left behind. The re-democratisation after the end of the military dictatorship led to huge expectation, however in vain. While the implementation of Plano Real by Fernando Henrique Cardosa in 1993 managed to eliminate the inflation and liberalised the economy, it also opened the way to the success of the Gospel of Prosperity. Traditional Brazilian values that stressed the importance of family and community (see Da Matta, 1991) became replaced by the growing “individualist desire for occupational autonomy across various social strata” (Lima, 2012: 383). A consequence of the neoliberal austerity that overcame the inflation was a growing attack against democracy and a shift towards a “New Right” (nova direita) supported by conservative (and often evangelical) Christianity. Cowan describes the “New Right” as “a broad coalition of actors whose principal concerns include some combination of free-market capitalism and deregulation (with variations in specific attitudes toward neoliberalism, ranging from a revived, self-reliant Gospel of Wealth to some advocacy for labor and working-class welfare); nationalism and anti-communism; and a reactionary renovation of traditional morality and values, perceived to have lapsed” (Cowan, 2018: 2, footnote 3). However, there is another aspect which my research has shown. The shift towards ‘leading a good life’ does not only feature the importance of self-improvement but has also a holistic understanding of wellbeing that embraces more than the material dimension. The offer of complementary health treatments in Brazil has risen extraordinarily, and some are even covered by health insurance as one interviewee explained. She was a Reiki practitioner and healer and advocated a holistic approach to healing and wellbeing. She told me for instance that “wellbeing is a broader concept. In my understanding is includes various aspects such as physical, mental, psychological, and emotional. When talking about health, people think about the symptoms. They assume that allopathy will treat the symptom and will therefore focus on the treatment of that symptom. For me, well-­ being is more. Well-being seeks the underlying reason for what you are feeling. So, I think for me there is a more complete understanding of wellbeing” (Renata, 61 years old, female, interview on 20th August 2018). She also outlined later in the interview how the different treatments such as meditation, acupuncture, Reiki but also spiritual healing and biomedical medicine should complement the other and not replace each other. For these treatments should be accessible for everyone, without consideration of their faith. She explained that during one of her courses two evangelical women were initially reluctant towards Reiki but in the end they

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realized that they could learn and practice it “without having to choose another religion”. Like this Reiki teacher I encountered people attending healing rituals or other forms of spiritual treatments that had been originally reluctant due to their faith but then embraced the new treatment as an additional component on their path to wellbeing. Wellbeing has become, as outlined above, linked to personal choices about which practice can help towards leading a good life. The question of what elements consist a ‘good life’ is now answered by everyone differently. And the journey to it has financial implication as workshops, training courses and other educational offers usually costs money. While some health insurances cover some complementary therapies, going on a workshop is usually not covered. Several centres even offer now degree courses and participants receive a certificate to confirm attendance. These monetary arrangements are growing throughout Brazil and form part of the post-neoliberal revolution (see also Stoll, 2006). Akpinar and Vohs even state that “Money and religion both act as coping aids that people can call upon to make themselves feel strong” (Akpinar & Vohs, 2011: 852). They argue that religion as well as money are associated with a feeling of strength, and it evokes “a state of self-efficacy that implies that each person can and will take care of him/herself” (Akpinar & Vohs, 2011: 852). Both stimulate, as Akpinar and Vohs write, a feeling of efficacy. The combination of both which one can see in these courses offered in growing number by spiritual centres in Brazil, is perhaps the most interesting outcome of the post-neoliberalism in Brazil. The development of the educational enterprises does not mean, however, that traditional values such as the importance of community are dead. As the data from the surveys indicated, wellbeing is still seen in relational terms as living well together. But the life stories captured in the interviews also demonstrated a growing individualisation of the path towards wellbeing reflected in the phrase leading a good life. This shift points to the impact of neoliberal ideas even when it comes to dealing with wellbeing from a holistic perspective.

5 Conclusion In his critique of neo-liberalism Sung states that “For neo-liberals, the notion of “social justice” not only makes no sense but represents an aberration of the notion of justice. They believe that the production of goods necessary for reproducing life in society, and increasing wealth for a better life, can only be carried out efficiently under the laws of the free market, and the laws of the free market are above good and evil, above what is just and unjust, because they are the fruit of evolution, and, like the laws of physics, independent of the human will and ethical valuation.” (Sung, 2018:129) The discussion above of the growing entanglement of spirituality and health in Brazil offers a new insight into post-neoliberalism and the continuity of religion, though in the shape of spirituality. As Rubin, Smilde and Junge argue, when researchers ignore the role of religion in shaping  – in the words of Partha Chatterjee (Chatterjee, 2016)  – “the on-the-ground ‘politics of the governed’”

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(Rubin et al., 2014: 8), they miss out a crucial feature of the lived experience and overlook how religion, or, in this case, spirituality, is at work in Latin America. On the other side we also need to acknowledge the impact of political, economic, and social changes, for instance the ones implemented by the spread of neoliberalism. Neoliberalism and religion might not be the ideal companions, but we need to study the links. As Wrenn has shown in her study of the Prosperity Gospel in the USA which is a perfect example of a neoliberal movement, “Within neoliberalism, the individual is self-referential and within a limited, personal sphere, has agency” (Wrenn, 2019: 428). But how far is the individual able to initiate long-lasting changes or control their personal circumstances including salvation though self-­ discipline and belief as Wrenn asks? The growing turn towards ‘leading a good life’ that my data indicates might be evidence for a neoliberal framework in which the individual is self-referential. However, complementary health treatments do not come cheap, and few Brazilians are covered by a health insurance that supports these treatments. How ‘authentic’ is therefore the personal agency within neoliberalism? Can we really make our own decisions? Studying movements such as the Prosperity Gospel (Wrenn, 2019) and, as I want to add, the complementary health therapies such as spirit healing offers a powerful counter narrative to the inauthentic agency of neoliberalism and improves our understanding of the intersection between health and neoliberalism.

References Akpinar, E., & Vohs, K. (2011). Can money and religion substitute for each other? Advances in Consumer Research, 38, 852–853. Arhapiagha, Yamunisiddha [=Neto, F.  Rivas]. (2003). Sacerdote, Mago e Médico: Cura e Autocura Umbandista; Terapia da Alma. Icone. Aureliano, W.  A. de. (2011). Espiritualidade,Saúde e as Artes de Cura no Contemporâneo: Indefinição de margens e busca de fronteiras em um centro terapêutico espírita no sul do Brasil. PhD thesis in anthropology, Universidade Federal de Santa Catarina. Casanova, J. (1994). Public religions in the modern world. University of Chicago Press. Chatterjee, P. (2016). The Politics of the Governed: Reflections on Popular Politics in Most of the World. New York: Columbia University Press. Cowan, B.  A. (2018). A hemispheric moral majority: Brazil and the transnational construction of the new right. Revista Brasileira de Política Internacional, 61(2), e004. https://doi. org/10.1590/0034-­7329201800204 Da Matta, R. (1991). Carnivals, rogues, and heroes: An interpretation of the Brazilian dilemma. University of Notre Dame Press. Fatheuer, T. (2011). Buen Vivir. Eine kurze Einführung in Lateinamerikas neue Konzepte zum guten Leben und zu den Rechten der Natur. Heinrich-Böll-Stiftung. Freston, P. (2001). Evangelicals and politics in Asia, Africa and Latin America. Cambridge University Press. Greenfield, S. M. (2008). Spirits with scalpels: The Culturalbiology of religious healing in Brazil. Left Coast Press. Jensen, T.  G. (1999). Discourses on afro-Brazilian religion: From De-Africanization to re-­ Africanization. In C.  Smith & J.  Prokopy (Eds.), Latin American religion in motion (pp. 275–294). Routledge.

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Kurz, H. (2018). Transcultural and transnational transfer of therapeutic practice. Healing cooperation of Spiritism, biomedicine, and psychiatry in Brazil and Germany. Curare, 41(1–2), 35–49. Kurz, H. (2017). Diversification of mental health care. Brazilian Kardecist psychiatry and the aesthetics of healing. Curare, 40(3), 195–206. Lewgoy, B. (2006). O sincretismo invisível: um olhar sobre as relações entre catolicismo e espiritismo no Brasil. In A. C. Isaia (Ed.), Orixás e Espíritos: o debate interdisciplinar na pequisa contemporânea (pp. 209–224). EDUFU. Lima, D. (2012). Prosperity and masculinity: Neopentecostal men in Rio de Janeiro. Ethnos, 77(3), 372–399. https://doi.org/10.1080/00141844.2011.609942 Mariano, R., & Oro, A. P. (2016). Religion and politics in Brazil. In B. E. Schmidt & S. Engler (Eds.), Handbook of contemporary religions in Brazil (pp. 363–378). Brill. Montero, P. (2016). Secularism and religion in the public sphere in contemporary Brazil. In B.  E. Schmidt & S.  Engler (Eds.), Handbook of contemporary religions in Brazil (pp. 379–394). Brill. Moreira-Almeida, A., & Neto, F.  L. (2005). Spiritist views of mental disorders in Brazil. Transcultural Psychiatry, 42(4), 570–595. https://doi.org/10.1177/1363461505058916 Roberts, P. (2015). Passive revolution in Brazil: Struggles over hegemony, religion and development 1964–2007. Third World Quarterly, 36(9), 1663–1681. https://doi.org/10.1080/0143659 7.2015.1045861 Rodríguez, I. (2016). Historical reconstruction and cultural identity building as a local pathway to ‘living well’ among the Pemon of Venezuela. In Sarah C. White with C. Blackmore (Ed.), Cultures of wellbeing: Method, place, policy (pp. 260–280). Palgrave Macmillan. Rubin, J. W., Smilde, D., & Junge, B. (2014). Livid religion and lived citizenship in Latin America’s zone of crisis. Introduction. Latin American Research Review, 49, 7–26. St Clair, G. (2017). ‘God even blessed me with less money’: Disappointment, Pentecostalism and the middle classes in Brazil. Journal of Latin American Studies, 49, 609–632. https://doi. org/10.1017/S0022216X17000396 Schmidt, B. E. (2021). Living with spirits of the dead - A case-study about spiritism and health. In A. R. Hatala & K. Roger (Eds.), Spiritual and faith-based practices in chronicity: Explorations of wellness during chronic conditions (Routledge special collection on religion, spirituality and health). Routledge. Schmidt, B. E. (2020). Narratives of spirituality and wellbeing: Cultural differences and similarities between Brazil and the UK. In B. E. Schmidt & J. Leonardi (Eds.), Spirituality and wellbeing: Interdisciplinary approaches to the study of religious experience and health (pp.  137–157). Equinox. Schmidt, B.  E. (2016). Spirits and trance in Brazil: Anthropology of religious experiences. Bloomsbury. Stoll, S.  J. (2006). O espiritsmo na encruzilhada: mediunidade com fins lucrativos. In A.  C. Isaia (Ed.), Orixás e Espíritos: o debate interdisciplinar na pequisa contemporânea (pp. 263–278). EDUFU. Stoll, S. J. (2002). Religião, ciência ou auto-ajuda? Trajetos do Espiritismo no Brasil. Revista de Antropologia, 45(2), 361–401. Sung, J.  M. (2018). Religion, human rights, and neo-liberalism in a post-humanist era. The Ecumenical Review, 70(1), 118–135. https://doi.org/10.1111/erev.12334 Toniol, R. (2018). Do Espírito na Saúde: Oferta e uso de terapies alternativas / complementares nos serviços de saúde pública no Brasil. editora LiberArs. Villalba, U. (2013). Buen Vivir vs development: A paradigm shift in the Andes? Third World Quarterly, 34(8), 1427–1442. https://doi.org/10.1080/01436597.2013.831594 Wrenn, M.  V. (2019). Consecrating capitalism: The United States prosperity gospel and neoliberalism. Journal of Economic Issues, LIII(2), 425–432. https://doi.org/10.1080/0021362 4.2019.1594528

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Bettina E. Schmidt is professor in Study of Religions and Anthropology of Religion at the University of Wales Trinity Saint David, UK and Director of the Religious Experience Research Centre in Lampeter, UK. Her main areas of research interests are Latin American and Caribbean religions, identity, and wellbeing. Her academic interests include religious experience, anthropology of religion, diaspora, and medical anthropology. Among her most important publications are Spirit and Trance in Brazil: An Anthropology of Religious Experiences (2016, Bloomsbury), Caribbean Diaspora in the USA: Diversity of Caribbean Religions in New York City (2008, Ashgate), Handbook of Contemporary Brazilian Religions (edited with Steven Engler, 2016, Brill) and Spirituality and Wellbeing: Interdisciplinary approaches to the study of religious experience and health (edited with Jeff Leonardi, 2020, Equinox).  

Wellness in the Wild: Reverential Naturalism in the Pacific Northwest Paul Bramadat

Abstract  In this chapter, I use recent ethnographic data from an international study to explore the relationship between neo-liberal wellness norms and “reverential naturalism,” the default orientation to the natural backdrop in the Pacific Northwest. Within this metanarrative we find a fairly identifiable set of norms and assumptions with respect to health, wellness, and purity. Throughout the available data on this region, there is a strong emphasis on a wide range of outdoor activities such as hiking and kayaking, and indoor practices such as yoga and meditation. I suggest that the wellness norms associated with the region are ambiguous in their nature and impact, inasmuch as they are simultaneously expressions of and potential corrections to neo-liberal ideological practices and principles. Reflecting critically on the way wellness and purity are imagined in this region may provide insights into new modes of spirituality that come into being in an era in which there are growing, if often inchoate, concerns over toxicity. Keywords  Wellness · Neoliberalism · Mindfulness · Yoga · Cascadia · Pacific Northwest · Reverential naturalism · Naturalism · Environmentalism In most western liberal democracies, previously hegemonic mainline Christian denominations are in a period of decline, and coming to terms with the predictable financial, emotional, political, and historical implications for adherents and civil society. Simultaneously, we see throughout the same societies the presence of relatively new, usually smaller, and generally less institutionalized religious or spiritual I would like to thank Scott Dolff and Rachel Brown for commenting on earlier drafts of this chapter, and the Social Science and Humanities Research Council for its support of the research on which this chapter is based. P. Bramadat (*) Centre for Studies in Religion and Society, University of Victoria, Victoria, BC, Canada e-mail: [email protected] © The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2022 G. Mossière (ed.), New Spiritualities and the Cultures of Well-being, Religion, Spirituality and Health: A Social Scientific Approach 6, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-06263-6_9

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groups and movements. Consider meditation “flashmobs” (Griera & Clot-Garrell, 2021); the International Day of Yoga (Bramadat, 2019); the rapid expansion of postural yoga (Jain, 2014, 2020); ubiquitous reiki, acupuncture, homeopathy, naturopathy or Traditional Chinese Medicine clinics throughout our cities; special events such as Burning Man in the US, the Glastonbury Festival in the UK, eco-festivals in Switzerland, and Wanderlust throughout North America (Lucia, 2020; Becci & Okoekpen, 2021); or the renaissance of Indigenous culture and spiritualities in North America (Borrows, 2016). These few examples demonstrate that throughout many western countries, spiritually-informed groups and events are alive and well. This is not the place to determine if these new forms of spirituality might in some sense compensate for the broader disaffiliation patterns that are challenging the most established groups. That is an empirical question better left to others (Heelas & Woodhead, 2005; Thiessen, 2015; Wilkins-Laflamme, 2022). I am inclined to think that uncertainties around the direction and net effect of secularization should not prevent us from also grappling with the complex implications of new forms of spirituality. In fact, keeping in mind both the floundering and the flourishing variants of religion and spirituality will help us understand some perhaps counter-­ intuitive shifts at work in our society as well as the evolution underway in the very definitions of religion, secularity, subjectivity, spirituality, and the public arena (to name just a few of the tectonic plates in motion). In this volume we share a common impression that new spiritual events, communities, or movements are bound up in interesting ways with the neo-liberal political and economic model in which all human pursuits are designed to improve the lives of autonomous utility maximizers increasingly unfettered by restrictive community norms and political institutions. It is futile to understand these new movements without paying special attention to the wellness discourses that animate them. After all, the through line connecting relatively new spiritual groups and movements is their concern for what we might call, following Foucault, the project of or care for the self – its longevity, wellness, stress, beauty, sex appeal, material comfort, work-life balance, equanimity, and upward professional trajectory (Wong, 2013). The particular economic logic at work in neo-liberalism is echoed in the internal logic of many of the new and growing forms of spirituality that concern the authors in this book. The most obvious evidence for this congruence is the fact, or at least the argument, that these groups often promote comprehensive regimes of self-care that are either apolitical or only political in a performative or “gestural” sense (Jain, 2020; Thatamanil, 2020). One challenge analysts face, however, is how to talk about an ideological orientation that has become so naturalized. Given that many commentators would trace the roots (or at least rapid acceleration) of neo-liberalism to the early 1980s at the end of the post-World War II period of Keynesian economics, many North Americans  – certainly most of the millennials and undergraduate students at the forefront of so many social movements  – would never have known any another ideological framework. For example, it is arguably not obvious to patients under 40 that their interactions with medical professionals are shaped by a relatively new model of self-hood, in which the individual is emboldened through the power and

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apparent omniscience provided by the internet and the latitude and self-confidence provided by advances in human and civil rights. Although most readers will frame the expansion of personal autonomy many have enjoyed since the 1960s favourably, the proliferation of “vaccine hesitancy” (Bramadat et al., 2017; Goldenberg, 2021) that bedevilled global responses to COVID-19 reminds us that the fetishization of individual freedom can have unintended consequences for individuals and societies. Aside from the relative invisibility and the problematic implications of the spread of neo-liberalism, in fact it is not even clear from which vantage point – the macro level of political economy or the micro level of the newly imperious subject – one might best understand or examine it. Since this relatively new ideological orientation is arguably most evident in its appeal to increasingly liberated individuals and boutique identity groups, the predictable entry-point for this analysis would seem to be a close reading of, say, a local yoga, reiki, meditation, or alternative festival setting, or for that matter a church youth program delivered through Zoom. However, a mindfulness centre in Nanaimo, Canada or thousands of kilometers away in Turku, Finland, share many “isomorphic” similarities (Jung & Stetter, 2017): they look and smell similar; their schedules are similar; the training of their teachers is similar; their website designs are similar, and so on. These resemblances reveal in interesting ways the globally-delimited scripts (Jung & Stetter, 2017) local actors have available to them when establishing studios, temples, ashrams, websites, symposia, apps, foundations, boards of directors, advertising copy, and so forth. Between the local and the global settings, however, is the meso-level region, which itself can be taken as a fruitful unit of analysis, with constitutive groups serving as illustrations, and larger social forces acting from above, so to speak. While a national or regional focus is unusual, it provides a valuable perspective on religion and spirituality. In this chapter, I explore the theoretical questions posed in this volume by focusing on the Pacific Northwest region of North America. Recent ethnographic data from an international study confirms that “reverential naturalism,” the default orientation to the natural backdrop of what is often called “Cascadia,” includes within it a fairly identifiable set of norms and assumptions with respect to health, wellness, and purity. Throughout the available data on this region, there is a strong emphasis on a wide range of outdoor wellness practices such as hiking and kayaking, and indoor practices such as yoga and meditation. I suggest that the wellness norms associated with the region are ambiguous in their nature and impact, inasmuch as they are simultaneously expressions of and potential corrections to neo-liberal ideological practices and principles. Reflecting critically on the way wellness and purity are imagined in this region may provide insights into new modes of spirituality that come into being in an era in which there are growing, if often inchoate, concerns over toxicity. I rely mostly on the quantitative and qualitative data my colleagues and I collected to produce Religion at the Edge: Nature, Spirituality, and Secularity in the Pacific Northwest (Bramadat et al., 2022). The US and Canadian historians, sociologists, and religious studies scholars involved in that book address the differences between the Canadian and US sides of the region; past and present trajectories of secularization; the ways some new or traditional religious communities thrive; and

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the relationship between nature and spirituality in public discourse. Our project did not consider at length either prevalent wellness discourses or the critique of neo-­ liberalism in the region, so this chapter gives me an opportunity to extend my thinking and the project data into these themes.1 I use data derived from U.S. participants of our international study only when they reflect broader regional themes, but I focus mainly on “Cascadia North,” the province of British Columbia. Furthermore, as with the project as a whole, I concentrate on the most densely populated urban areas of the region, where over 4/5ths of the population live. Finally, the region’s Indigenous population (about 5% in British Columbia and 2% in Washington and Oregon) is complex and characterized by quite distinctive social dynamics addressed in our book and elsewhere (Crawford O’Brien, 2013; Harris, 2002; Horton, 2022).

1 The Region In the urban settings on the western slope of the Rocky Mountain and the Coast Mountain ranges, we witness the meeting of radical individualism, advanced secularization, Indigenous cultural and political resurgence, nature spirituality, neo-­ liberalism, and advanced public health regimes. The region is roughly comprised of a series of interconnected watersheds in which water cascades from the mountains westward to the Pacific Ocean, and includes most of Oregon and Washington states and the province of British Columbia. “Cascadia” connotes a politically and geographically distinctive territory straddling the border and marked by towering mountain ranges, dense forests, clean and plentiful water, a temperate climate, rugged coastlines, abundant flora and fauna, and a relaxed “you do you” spirit. As a Roman Catholic leader we interviewed in Victoria said, “Everything about living here in Cascadia is like, so easy. We have the easy life, everywhere you go, everything is easy. […] You don’t have to have five cords of wood stacked up to stay warm. So, everything about the environment here is conducive to ease.” These favourable conditions – in Canada the mild climate has a powerful appeal – likely explain the thriving economy, high cost of living, enviable quality of life, and high rates of in-migration from neighbouring provinces and states. It is no accident that one of the official license plate options for British Columbians included the bizarrely unironic government logo, “The Best Place on Earth.”

 This project created a large data set consisting of oral histories; focus groups of millennials; focus groups of regular (i.e., non-clergy) adherents; interviews with religious leaders; an archive of census, policy, and media documents related to religion in the region; an extensive bibliography; and the PNSS, a major survey of the region that itself consisted of a 1510-participant professionally balanced sample and a 841-participant convenience sample. After the PNSS and literature review were completed, two teams conducted formal interviews, focus groups, and site visits in Victoria, Vancouver, Portland, and Seattle. Prior to and after the official data gathering period, many team members (almost all of whom are long-term residents) informally visited religious, spiritual and relevant post-religious sites and groups (e.g., humanist organizations). 1

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Although some settler families with deep roots have lost their sense of the region’s peculiarity, visitors and scholars notice the unusual cultural configurations right away. Perhaps the most dramatic empirical difference between British Columbia and the rest of Canada is revealed in the 2017 Pacific Northwest Social Survey (PNSS) conducted as part of Religion at the Edge, in which we found that 49% of respondents indicated they have “no religion” whereas according to the federal government’s 2011 National Household Survey, roughly 22% of other Canadians would say the same. To capture the strength of post-institutional expressions of spirituality in the region, we can also consider briefly the popularity and meanings of postural yoga in the region. The PNSS found that 41% of our representative sample indicated that they had engaged in yoga in the last year; the frequency of practice varied between daily (4.8%), weekly (14.5%), monthly (8.1%), or once or a few times annually (13.3%). When these practitioners were asked if they experienced their practice as spiritual, 55% of them said definitely yes (13%) or probably yes (42%).2 In other words, a little over half of 41% of the whole population, or roughly one in five British Columbians, engages in postural yoga as a means of increasing their spiritual wellness, wholeness, and awareness. To put the size of this cohort in perspective, it is the equivalent of all self-identified Anglicans and United Church Christians, plus all Buddhists, Hindus, Muslims, Jews, and Sikhs in the province. The disproportionally high number of “nones” and the tremendous popularity of spiritually-inflected yoga are just two of the more interesting features of religion, irreligion, and spirituality in this part of North America. For scholars interested in contemporary forms and definitions of religion and well-being discourses, this bioregion provides some interesting lessons. I now offer a richer account of the region’s characteristic metanarrative to provide some context for common health and wellness norms.

2 Reverential Naturalism Although scholars and lay people alike tend to imagine naturalism as incommensurable with metaphysical or spiritual accounts of the universe (Papineau, 2016), in the Cascadia bioregion, a metanarrative I call reverential naturalism is grounded in the acceptance of modern scientific approaches to nature but is simultaneously

 Survey respondents were asked: In the past 12 months, how often on average did you practice or take part in the following activities, either in a group or on your own? Yoga was one example among many. In the survey we defined “spiritual” as “a profound and usually positive experience that helps individuals find their authentic self, as well as connects them to a mysterious, universal, and overarching reality. Respondents who reported they practiced yoga were simply asked if they would define these practices as spiritual. See: https://uwspace.uwaterloo.ca/bitstream/handle/10012/13406/Cascadia%20report%20part%202%2006-2018%20combined. pdf?sequence=2&isAllowed=y 2

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inclined to frame the natural world in ways that lean on mysticism, panentheism, animism, pantheism, and inclusive forms of theism. This concept is reminiscent in some respects of “nature religion” (Albanese, 1990), “religious naturalism” (Goodenough, 1998), and “dark green religion” (Taylor, 2010; cf. Shibley, 2011). However, the words “religion” and “religious” are often quite alienating or inert for many residents in the Pacific Northwest. When an “etic” analytical category ceases to be meaningful (or starts to be anathema) for about half of one’s participants, and yet when religion-like groups, ideas, and practices still seem common in the region, it creates an opportunity to expand one’s frame of reference (Kleeb, 2013; cf. Bramadat, 2022).3 To be clear, reverential naturalism is neither a new nor nascent form of religion; nor is it merely a type of individualistic or idiosyncratic spirituality. Rather, this metanarrative animates the individual stories and perspectives of almost all of the people we met during our research. This account of the world seems to be the default orientation of residents from all conventional religious (or irreligious) backgrounds. As one interview subject observed, We all share this place that we love, and that’s common ground that we can start from on any topic. I think that we have this beautiful place and we can all appreciate that beauty, maybe in different ways, and maybe we tackle it in different ways, but that that’s like a common ground that we can all share regardless of, you know, political, religious [perspectives], whatever. And so that’s very central to the feelings that attract people to the idea of Cascadia.

This variant of naturalism presumably exists elsewhere but may be most visible in British Columbia both because of the natural splendor of the region, the powerful place of environmental concerns in public discourse, and (perhaps mostly) because about half of the population does not identify with religion. This latter fact may represent a tipping-point for public discourse, as it is now unusual for people (especially for people under 40) to identify with any conventional religion. I moved to British Columbia in 2008, so I am, as it were, at least a newcomer and perhaps also a convert to reverential naturalism, but I hope not a naïve one. I am not suggesting that residents exist in a permanent state of bliss. There are at least two cohorts of people for whom the adjective “reverential” would be problematic: first, those who adopt a philosophical approach according to which the natural world is only comprehensible in flat, reductionist and materialist terms; and second, those with no interest in theology, philosophy, or environmentalism, for whom the natural world is simply an attractive backdrop for their leisure pursuits. Moreover, still other residents would espouse a “maximalist” (Lincoln, 2003) and conventional religious consciousness, in which case they may be irritated by the taken for granted nature of naturalistic orientations in the region. Nonetheless, although it is important to bear these provisos in mind, what I am calling reverential naturalism does

 Reverential naturalism better describes this core story than “eco-spirituality,” because in the latter approach, “eco[logical]” is a modifier of the core fact of “spirituality,” whereas in the former approach, an enriched and open naturalism is the starting point. 3

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appear to be an integral part of the way most Cascadians approach the natural world (Bramadat, 2022). A few additional excerpts from fieldwork transcripts both characterize the spiritualized “common ground” of Cascadia, and provide a general sense of the ways participants spoke about wellness and the body’s place in the environment. I offer these mostly uninterpreted selections to paint a picture of a shared local orientation. Sophie, a Vancouver millennial, contrasted British Columbia with the rest of Canada: “No one [in Cascadia] will say ‘Uh, you believe in Mother Earth and the beauty of nature? You’re totally off your rocker.’ Or, ‘Oh. That’s so quaint.’ You don’t get that response [here] so much.” Muhammad, her fellow focus group member and a Muslim, said, “Yeah, you’re right, you wouldn’t.” A Protestant minister with whom we spoke in our study remarked: “Most people will worship God by hiking Mt. Hood on a Sunday morning. That’s kind of the public narrative. [T]his is a place where nature-based spirituality tends to be our native language.” A Portland resident said: “I have lots of friends here who talk about hiking being their church or whatever…. I think that really is, in my anecdotal experience, tied to peoples’ spirituality because it’s – this feels obvious for me to say because I’ve lived here my whole life, but maybe it’s not. But because we’re so close at any time, wherever you are in the Pacific Northwest, to getting to, like, nature, I think that that really seems to have impacted a lot of people I know.” A rabbi remarked that in this region: “[O]n a certain level, everybody’s an environmentalist [here]…. I think that many people find their spirituality, you know, outside, in one form or another. And that that’s a very meaningful spirituality to people.” A Buddhist abbot echoed this sentiment by saying that the approach to nature among her community would best be described as “Cherishing. One of the things that I hear from people is that they don’t feel quite right unless they make regular trips to the beach or mountains.” Similarly, Linda, a Protestant woman with deep roots in the region noted during an oral history interview: “Yeah, I think that’s an, that’s an important thing that we still take walks in the park as often as we can, and try to do hikes. And get out in God’s work, in creation or whatever. That’s an important part of our, of helping us stay sane, you know.” Stephanie, a millennial who commutes on a bicycle, observed: “But that’s definitely like an everyday spiritual experience for me, is just the experience of getting somewhere on my own power, and also seeing this nature that I know is connected to me and all of life in mysterious ways that I can’t understand. It’s like, I mean, to me the great mystery is part of the fun, and maybe part of what draws me to my unidentified spirituality, is that it’s almost a relief to me to say, Yes, there’s something out there that’s bigger than me, and that I am part of, and I can’t understand it and that’s okay.” Finally, in an effort to explain why her husband did not attend church, an American woman we interviewed commented: “…he was too busy hiking and fishing, all the other wonderful things in the Northwest. And that’s what he would say, is that his God was creation.” Clearly, reverential naturalism is not merely oriented toward a disembodied interiority. It also produces or is inextricably connected to some of the cardinal

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attributes of neo-liberal societies: particular regimes of health and wellness. Just as Max Weber spoke of the “economic ethic” associated with different religious perspectives, one can speak of the “health ethic” or “wellness ethic” associated with the variant of naturalism I have sketched above. The nature of this ethic is both implicit and explicit in the transcript selections above. In particular, reverential naturalism includes a distinctive ethic that assumes that residents will  – indeed should  – be actively engaged in the pursuit of wellness  – both outdoors as well as in indoor spaces.4 On the surface, reverential naturalism seems to oppose the harsh spirit – the allusion to Weber is intentional – of late capitalism. After all, it presupposes the unique value of natural environments that are not obviously determined by the marketplace. By the end of our study, however, it became clear that although meditation, yoga, and hiking are promoted by tourism marketers as available to all – with often free yoga classes offered in parks – these activities are most readily available to those who both have the financial latitude to buy yoga clothes, memberships, hiking boots, surf boards, canoes, mountain bikes, and kayaks, and who are not exhausted from working multiple jobs to cover the high rents or mortgages one finds in the most desirable places to live in the region. Moreover, I can say from personal experience that there is some truth to the stereotype about the people who make most use of the region’s natural amenities, who frequent Cascadia’s plethora of yoga studios, and who shop at outdoor lifestyle stores such as MEC (Mountain Equipment Coop) or its U.S. equivalent, REI (Recreation Equipment Incorporated). That is, they are relatively educated, healthy, mobile, and mostly white settlers with some commitment to environmental principles (Brean, 2018). As well, some scholars (Foxen, 2020; Jain, 2020; Wong, 2013) have argued that although practices such as meditation and yoga often do deliver on the promise of stress relief and other health objectives, they perhaps unintentionally discourage people from questioning the social and economic structures that arguably produce their suffering in the first place. By framing the pursuit of wellness strictly in personal terms, then, the neo-liberal model insulates itself from critique. Finally, in an effort to think beyond conventional categories of religion, doctrine, irreligion, and so forth, John Thatamanil distinguishes between “therapeutic regimes” and “interpretive schemes.” The former refers to “ways of disciplining the bodies and minds of persons and communities so that they might become rightly disposed to the world as rightly understood” (2020, 173) while the latter refers to “some more or less systematic representation for taking or construing the world as such so that persons and communities can assume a place in the world as so construed” (2020, 175). One would typically find a particular regime or set of practices (related, say, to certain  There were a few “exceptions that prove the rule.” Speaking of the common claims people make that hiking is their church, a prominent Christian leader noted: “Like, [in those conversations] I feel like my inner asshole, like, ‘Come on, you guys.’ Yeah, I feel good when I look at a pretty view too, but that’s, is that God?.... I recognize that it has a lot of cultural valence and there’s a lot of people for whom that is an important thing. It is certainly a phenomenon in this neck of the world, and I sometimes feel like I kinda wanna push back on it.” 4

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ways of praying, eating, marking time, mourning loved-ones) associated with a specific and more abstract scheme for understanding the world. The distinctive therapeutic regime one sees in Cascadia is certainly characterized by wellness pursuits such as hiking, camping, yoga, and so forth. In Cascadia, the natural concern one might have is that in the absence of some kind of interpretive scheme  – usually linked to but not always coextensive with a religion – hedonistic neo-liberalism will rush in to fill the vacuum. This is a quite valid concern. However, while these citizens enjoy the fruits of capitalism, in this region reverential naturalism might be seen as an embodied (and an “emplaced”) interpretive scheme which provides an increasingly coherent framework, informed by environmentalist values, within which to situate one’s therapeutic regime. Now that I have provided an account of the wellness discourses related to reverential naturalism, we can consider a crucial value associated with the way bodies as well as natural environments are imagined.

3 Purity as Problem and Promise I do not wish to overstate the uniqueness of this region. There are other enchanting and beautiful places in the world, obviously. Nonetheless, as Religion at the Edge confirms, it is common for residents (and often visitors) to story the entire region as distinctive in the ways I have sketched above. Moreover, within the metanarrative of reverential naturalism, the natural environment of Cascadia is framed as the source of a restorative, pure, and health-giving energy. One can detect purity norms throughout the images and rhetoric of the region. The interlacement of neo-liberal wellness norms and the Cascadian form of naturalism are evidenced clearly in what some call “purity politics” or “purism,” the tendency to imagine that a body, a group, a society, or an eco-system might be, as it were, simplified, detoxified, and returned to its clean, healthy essence or potential (Shotwell, 2016; cf. Douglas, 1966; Latour, 1993). Purism  – as a veneration of order, harmony, truth, or clarity – may be found in virtually all religious and ideological sensibilities, alongside accounts of the impure (and thus less human) other. It is a notion with deep roots and extensive tendrils, though it now assumes a distinctively “modern” meaning (Latour, 1993) that is beyond the scope of this chapter. Implied in purism, of course, is a robust alternative to the messy realities of daily life; the fantasies of purism provide poignant insights not just into the wishful thinking of a particular person or group. It tells us who we are not, yet, or not, entirely. While it is common for people to romanticize their own local settings, purism is extensively present in the region’s public discourse as well as both political and corporate branding (arguably in a manner unseen in other parts of the country). Furthermore, the sometimes bloated and unironic rhetoric we can see in some aspects of reverential naturalism – the “Best Place on Earth,” for example – is deeply indebted to purity politics. In Cascadia, on the one hand nature is framed as salve, retreat, abundant, pristine, indominable, peaceful, harmonious, majestic,

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mysterious, sublime, and inexhaustible, but on the other hand it is framed as delicate, endangered, fragile, spoiled, cursed, wasted, toxic, commodified, exhausted, stolen, and wounded. The two culprits in the second set of adjectives, of course, are both ordinary individuals whose consumption is despoiling the planet, and the corporations we create to serve as legally sanctioned vehicles. The situation is complex, but the desired affect of the dramatic rhetoric is intentional: we are at risk of ruining even this once indominable, unspoiled region. Three stories illustrate the relationship between purism and reverential naturalism in British Columbia. Consider, first, that for several weeks in 2018, Cascadians were reminded almost daily of a tragedy unfolding in the inland sea between (roughly) Seattle and Vancouver. On August 13, 2018, J35, or Tahlequah, a 20-year old member of the “J Pod” of “southern resident” killer whales that live in the Salish Sea, finally released a dead calf she had been balancing on her nose for over two weeks. Tahlequah had been engaged in “grieving” and “mourning” behavior that would certainly jeopardize her own life if it continued. The stakes were and still are high, since coho salmon – their food supply – has been diminished by (among other possible factors) changes in ocean and river patterns related to climate change, over-­ fishing, fish farming, vessel traffic, and seals (which also eat coho). As well, public concern has been expressed about the plans of the Canadian federal government and international oil companies to increase massively the capacity of existing pipelines to bring diluted bitumen from the Alberta tar sands thousands of kilometres south-west to a harbour in the Greater Vancouver Area.5 The collective angst expressed over the potential loss of animals that are framed as primeval and noble, arguably bespeaks deeper concerns related to the “Anthropocene,” the era in which humans are the definitive and generally malignant influence on the planet (Kluger, 2017). The drama unfolding off the coast of Vancouver in 2018 was typically framed as a clash between the region’s pure, untamed reverence-inducing natural splendor and the growing normalization of heartless neo-liberal approaches to the environment.6 Second, the cost of living in the region is the source of tremendous stress for many – especially younger – urbanites. For many residents of Vancouver, Victoria, and Seattle, home ownership is out of reach (in the two Canadian cities, the average house price is well over one million dollars). Throughout our study, residents routinely framed the natural environment as a site of some inextinguishable, ineffable, and reverence-worthy spiritual presence. In other words, as often rather unforgiving  https://www.wildernesscommittee.org/take-action/write-wild-more-killer-whale-critical-habitatand-better-protection? See also: https://www.cnn.com/2018/08/10/us/orca-whale-still-carryingdead-baby-trnd/index.html; https://www.nationalgeographic.com/animals/2018/08/ orca-mourning-calf-killer-whale-northwest-news/; https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/britishcolumbia/grandmother-orca-jpod-at-risk-of-dying-1.4968739 6  A week before the end of J 35’s apparent refusal to accept her calf’s death, the Sierra Club of BC penned a press release that read: ‘We have been following the story of J-35’s grief with broken hearts. It is an overwhelming tragedy on our coast that should be a watershed moment where the plight of the orcas solidifies in the public consciousness as at a crisis point,’ said Simon Pidcock, Head Captain of Ocean Ecoventures.’ https://sierraclub.bc.ca/tag/whales/ 5

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neo-liberal priorities come more and more to define these urban spaces as inherently hostile or indifferent to the ordinary material interests of its residents, the easily accessible woods, mountains, and oceans become idealized as both besieged and spiritually restorative. Third, and more personally, in 2008 when my family and I decided to move to the west coast, a friend who had made the trip more than a decade earlier, warned us that the region attracts people who privilege popular wellness practices of the region (e.g., yoga, kayaking, meditation, hiking) over deep family ties and connections to the institutions in which they might work and the cities in which they might live. A rabbi we interviewed echoed his advice: I think there are a lot of people who still feel that [the Pacific Northwest] is kind of the frontier… [characterized by] rugged individualism, but in a spiritual kind of vein. People here just, they want meaning, but they want it with fewer obligations and commitment. […] Because I think they feel like they come out here and, you know, they find God in nature, or spirituality in nature, or in yoga, or in their co-op and whatever.

The portrait my friend painted is quite consistent with the motivations of European settlers who first began to move over the Rocky Mountains in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries (Block, 2016) once the government had displaced and disenfranchised the existing Indigenous communities. The region has always appealed to relatively unmoored people looking for a new future, forged against the backdrop of a place settlers understood, one should note, as devoid of anything other than the surviving stragglers of Indigenous “races” (Lutz, 2007). Perhaps because it was understood as the quintessential example of an old-world convention, organized religion never became as deeply rooted among this new migration cohort (Barman, 1991). As one of our participants described her own more recent choices: “I like to bike everywhere, and I really like to do a lot of hands-on things, and I was tired of explaining myself to everybody [in eastern North America] because they just wanted to question every single thing I wanted to do and I didn’t feel like I needed to have a conversation every time I just wanted to live my life. So, I moved here….” What this has meant is that as neo-liberalism spread through the province as it did across western liberal democracies in the 1980s, it had relatively weak religious structures with which to contend as it championed a more autonomous human agent who would challenge or simply ignore orthodoxies, and a society whose structures were encouraging agents to look out mainly for themselves (Block, 2016). My friend’s sage advice evokes the ways the region has always appealed to people looking to recreate their bodies and their communities in a simpler, more pristine workshop, unencumbered by traditional constraints. These three stories capture the way the region’s environment is storied as both pure (if also threatened) and perfectly suited to an individual’s health, re-creation and self-actualization (provided one is a settler of European origin (Horton, 2022). Here we can see how the critiques of purism have a bearing on our consideration of new forms of spirituality. That is to say, it is true that hiking, boating, yoga memberships, “forest bathing,” meditation/reiki/yoga retreats, and so forth, are marketed as opportunities to cultivate one’s health, personal spirituality, and awareness of the

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universe, but are much more easily accessible to those who are able to position themselves well in the dominant ideological structure. As well, these new forms of spirituality focus on the care of oneself and the enjoyment of the natural world, rather than charity, moral rectitude, or solidarity and justice mandates associated with more conventional forms of Christianity prevalent in the region for most of its colonial history. Moreover, in the rhetoric one often hears in the public debates around the preservation of “charismatic mega-fauna” (Kaufman & Franz, 2000: 342) such as orcas, the housing crisis in the region’s large cities, and well-entrenched westward migration patterns, we can also see often rather naïve purity tropes. In truth, scholars and environmentalists will not find it difficult to problematize purism. Whether the object in question is a human body, a racialized group, a tourist destination, a religious movement, or geological formation, purity is always a fiction. For example, in British Columbia, the “clear-cutting” of forests is a controversial practice, but forest companies and the governments that license them understand the local and tourist sensibilities well enough to leave buffer zones next to highways. This, of course, shields most people from the sight of a denuded landscape that might otherwise convey the impression that the region is one large tree farm. However, from higher elevations it is not difficult to see the large squares cut out of the forest, awaiting the replanting of the crop. Within a promotion for the “Victoria Passport,” we read: with the enriched perspective that such a visit will bring, you’ll look at the landscape with new interest and appreciation. The figures on the totems will no longer be static representations from a mythological age. Instead, combined with the presence of killer whales, seals, eagles, ravens, salmon, and other species that are as vibrant in the landscape today as they were in the past, you’ll enter a timeless realm and, in the process, discover a new place in nature for yourself. https://www.vgsn.ca/tourism-­passport

This advertising campaign features healthy, affluent, almost entirely white, people in their 30s enjoying whale watching tours, totem poles, fine food, posh hotels, rented kayaks, shopping, and street festivals. Nothing is said about the existential threats posed to orcas by tanker traffic, over-fishing, habitat disruptions, or centuries of sewage pumped into the Salish sea. Unspoken also is the fact that every square meter of land shown in the promotion is unceded traditional territory of Indigenous communities that have been callously dispossessed. One cannot blame the tourists and locals who float through these promotions; they are here to collect on the promised journey to a timeless realm, a new sense of their place in nature, and a robust feeling of wellness. In such campaigns, purity helps to distract people from social and economic structures that may eventually destroy these pristine places altogether. Underlining the point Jain (2020) makes about the weak social critique offered by many new spiritualities, we might say that in a region animated by reverential naturalism, orcas are the opiate of the masses. It is arguably the case that without a notion of the region’s inalienable (even if only barely-retrievable) purity, reverential naturalism would lose its power to be the “common ground” one participant mentioned above. It is tempting to indict purism and its fairly obvious role in neo-liberal consumer society. However, it is important

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to observe that the appeal of reverential naturalism and purism grows out of widespread concerns regarding what we might call the ambient toxicity of the world in the middle of a downward environmental spiral (Olawoyin, 2018).7 This sensibility is shared by many new spiritual (and for that matter, conventional religious) groups not just in British Columbia but in many of the contexts in which we see novel expressions of religion and spirituality (Griera & Clot-Garrell, 2021; Heelas & Woodhead, 2005). This concern is the natural bi-product of public anxieties around climate change, pandemics, actual and imagined oil spills, economic injustice, droughts, floods, mud slides, earthquakes, tsunamis, and forest fires. The ubiquity of these stories in the public arena, and the understanding that so much is at stake in a region that considers itself home to some of the last wild places in the world, makes purism all the more attractive. Given that the interdependence between individuals and their ecosystems is a foundational message of reverential naturalism, we should hardly be surprised by the centrality of romantic purity tropes in the region. It should be said, as well, that the individual wellness regimes characteristic of Cascadia emerge against the backdrop of vociferous public debates regarding Indigenous claims (in a province with roughly 95% unceded territory) as well as the potentially devastating impact of the expansion of oil transport (Horton, 2022). These might seem like unconnected social processes. However, consider the recent outrage inspired by the proposed expansion of the Kinder-Morgan pipeline that would endanger the orcas described above. In 2018, I visited the main pipeline protest site, and there I saw a large sign erected outside of the gates of the oil company headquarters. “Who do you trust?” was the question emblazoned across the top of the sign. Below that, two male faces were hand-drawn, each on different sides of a vertical line down the middle of the sign. Beside one face, the biography read: “Reuben George: Inheritor of a tradition of caretakers of the land and waters for thousands of years…. Propagator of Positive spiritual energy.” Beside the other face we find a different story: “Richard Kinder [of the Kinder-Morgan corporation]: Exploiter, Profiteer, Destructor [sic] of Natural Resources.” The protests drew attention to a serious threat to the coastal ecosystem of Cascadia and the sovereignty of several Indigenous nations along the pipeline route. The purity rhetoric on which the poster relied is also, arguably, implicated in the region’s spiritualized wellness subcultures and environmental movements.

 See, for example, a WHO study and Guardian story about widespread air toxicity: https://www. theguardian.com/environment/2018/oct/29/air-pollution-worlds-children-breathing-toxic-airwho-study-finds 7

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4 Conclusion Reverential naturalism certainly does not constrain commercialization at all, as we see when we consider the cost of outdoor equipment, the success of Vancouver’s yoga apparel company, Lululemon, and the assumption that consumers could afford to set aside the time to devote to popular practices such as yoga, hiking, surfing, and meditation. Assumptions about the purity of nature – and about bodies disciplined by yoga, reiki, hiking, meditation, harmonialism (Foxen, 2020), and a diet aligned correctly with nature – are central features of reverential naturalism. As critical as one might be about the ways spiritualized wellness regimes and purity rhetorics are imagined and sold, these rather naïve discourses reflect broader anxieties. Historically continuous narratives about the region suggest people visit and make their homes in what one interview subject described as the “land of tomorrow” in part to deal with the distress created by ambient assumptions about the increasing toxicity (or complexity, impurity, disorder) of the world of today. Critiques of neo-liberalism can be usefully applied to the default orientation of this region, but it is also important to look carefully at the downstream effects of reverential naturalism, so to speak. Here the news is somewhat more positive. One example stands out: In 2016, the 6.4-million-hectare Great Bear Rainforest preserve was announced by the provincial Liberal government (the B.C. “Liberals” are neo-­ liberal and similar to the “Conservative” parties elsewhere in the country). From a video announcement created by the government, and also from a variety of other sources (e.g., Hunter, 2016), we learn that the process was long but widely considered to be a success. The video begins: “The Great Bear Rainforest is a Magical Place…. It is a habitat that is untouched.” Later, over top of ethereal music and beautiful footage of the rare, white, and quintessentially wild (Kermode) “Spirit Bear,” an Indigenous negotiator observes: “The reason [the agreement] has been supported is because it is aligned with our spiritual principles….We have been able to harmonize our common priorities….If we take care of the land and the sea, the land and the sea will take care of us.”8 Another example: Although neo-liberal norms generally infuse B.C.’s government (led by the left-leaning New Democratic Party since 2017) and business sectors, the province’s public institutions and civil society have fared quite well during the COVID-19 pandemic. In fact, Chief Provincial Health Officer, Dr. Bonnie Henry (Porter, 2020) is much lauded for her unpretentious data-driven competence. My point is not to romanticize the province or its government, but simply to observe that the strong presence of neo-liberal perspectives in a society need not always result in the dissolution of those social structures on which we rely so heavily in extremis. The contrast between Canada (British Columbia in particular) and the United States, is a reminder that neo-liberalism takes different forms in different places. In Cascadia North, that form is deeply entangled with a metanarrative that blends spirituality and scientific approaches to a beautiful environment in a distinctive way.  See: greatbearrainforest.gov.bc.ca

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Earlier I noted that there are numerous ways in which neo-liberalism and reverential naturalism co-exist, a fact that understandably raises concerns. The approach to human wellness that may be considered emblematic of reverential naturalism as a new, post-institutional expression of geographically-bounded spirituality, is not unproblematic. Although there is good reason to support the critiques of the interlacement of neo-liberalism and reverential naturalism, the situation is complicated. Clearly, something is working here – for personal and ecosystem health – that has allowed us to avoid the worst-case scenarios one might expect from what we might call the neo-liberal consensus. For all its shortcomings, as a story about the way residents do and should inhabit their own bodies within the natural world, reverential naturalism might also enable this society to resist some of the most damaging features of the dominant ideological paradigm.

References Albanese, C. (1990). Nature religion in America: From the Algonkian Indians to the New Age. University of Chicago Press. Barman, J. (1991). The West beyond the West. University of Toronto Press. Becci, I., & Okoekpen, S. (2021). Staging green spirituality in the parks of Lausanne and Geneva: A spatial approach to urban ecological festivals. In P.  Bramadat, M.  Griera, J.  Martínez-­ Ariño, & M. Burchardt (Eds.), Urban religious events: Public spirituality in contested spaces (pp. 31–44). Bloomsbury. Block, T. (2016). The secular Northwest: Religion and irreligion in everyday postwar life. University of British Columbia Press. Borrows, J. (2016). Freedom and indigenous constitutionalism. University of Toronto Press. Bramadat, P. (2019). A bridge too far: Yoga, spirituality, and contested space in the Pacific Northwest. Religion, State and Society, 47, 491–507. Bramadat, P. (2022). Reverential naturalism in Cascadia: From the fancy to the sublime. In P.  Bramadat, P.  O’Connell Killen, & S.  Wilkins-Laflamme (Eds.), Religion at the edge: Nature, spirituality, and secularity in the Pacific Northwest (pp. 23–40). University of British Columbia Press. Bramadat, P., Guay, M., Bettinger, J., & Roy, R. (Eds.). (2017). Public health in the age of anxiety: Religious and cultural reasons for vaccine hesitancy. University of Toronto Press. Bramadat, P., O’Connell Killen, P., & Wilkins-Laflamme, S. (2022). Religion at the Edge: Nature, Spirituality, and Secularity in the Pacific Northwest. University of British Columbia Press. Brean, J. (2018) Canada’s adventure gap: Why it doesn’t make sense for the great outdoors to be such a White Space. The National Post. 24 May. https://nationalpost.com/news/canada/ canadas-­adventure-­gap-­why-­it-­doesnt-­makes-­sense-­for-­the-­great-­outdoors-­to-­be-­such-­a-­ white-­space. Accessed 5 Aug 2020. Crawford O’Brien, S. (2013). Coming full circle: Spirituality and wellness among native communities in the Pacific Northwest. University of Nebraska Press. Douglas, M. (1966). Purity and Danger: An Analysis of Concepts of Pollution and Taboo. Routledge. Foxen, A. (2020). Inhaling spirit: Harmonialism, orientalism, and the Western roots of modern yoga. Oxford University Press. Goldenberg, M. (2021). Vaccine hesitancy: Public trust, expertise, and the war on science. University of Pittsburgh Press. Goodenough, U. (1998). The sacred depths of nature. Oxford University Press.

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Griera, M., & Clot-Garrell, A. (2021). Turning spirituality into a public event: The popularization of collective meditations in the Urban Space. In P.  Bramadat, M.  Griera, J.  Martínez-­ Ariño, & M. Burchardt (Eds.), Urban religious events: Public spirituality in contested spaces (pp. 159–176). Bloomsbury. Harris, C. (2002). Making native space: Colonialism, resistance, and reserves in British Columbia. University of British Columbia Press. Heelas, P., & Woodhead, L. (2005). The spiritual revolution: Why religion is giving way to spirituality. Wiley-Blackwell. Horton, C. (2022). On religion, irreligion, and settler Colonialism in the Pacific Northwest: A snapshot from the field. In P. Bramadat, P. O’Connell Killen, & S. Wilkins-Laflamme (Eds.), Religion at the edge: Nature, spirituality, and secularity in the Pacific Northwest (pp. 41–59). University of British Columbia Press. Hunter, J. (2016). Final agreement reached to protect B.C.’s Great Bear Rainforest. Globe and Mail, February 1. Jain, A. (2014). Selling Yoga: From counterculture to pop culture. Oxford University Press. Jain, A. (2020). Peace, Love, Yoga: The politics of global spirituality. Oxford University Press. Jung, D., & Stetter, S. (2017). Modern subjectivities in world society. Palgrave MacMillan. Kaufman, D.  G., & Franz, C.  M. (2000). Biosphere 2000: Protecting our global environment. Kendall Hunt Publishing Company. Kleeb, S.  L. (2013). Anonymous believers in Bron Taylor’s Dark Green Religion. Studies in Religion, 42(3), 309–314. Kluger, J. (2017) The sixth great extinction is underway – And we are to blame. Time. https://time. com/3035872/sixth-­great-­extinction/. Accessed 30 July 2020. Latour, B. (1993). We Were Never Modern. Harvard University Press. Lincoln, B. (2003). Holy terrors: Thinking about religion after September 11. University of Chicago Press. Lucia, A. (2020). White Utopias: The Religious Exoticism of Transformational Festivals. University of California Press. Lutz, J. (Ed.). (2007). Myth and memory: Stories of Indigenous-European Contact. University of British Columbia Press. Olawoyin, R. (2018). Adverse human health impacts in the Anthropocene. Environmental Health Insights. Accessed July 30, 2020. https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC6243402/ Papineau, D. (2016). Naturalism. The Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy, edited by Edward N.  Zalta. https://plato.stanford.edu/archives/win2016/entries/naturalism/. Accessed 20 Mar 2020. Porter, C. (2020). The top doctor who Aced the Coronavirus test. New York Times, 5 June. Shibley, M. A. (2011). Sacred nature: Earth-based spirituality as popular religion in the Pacific Northwest. Journal for The Study of Religion, Nature and Culture, 5(2), 164–185. Shotwell, A. (2016). Against purity: Living ethically in compromised times. University of Minnesota Press. Taylor, B. (2010). Dark green religion: Nature, spirituality and the planetary future. University of California Press. Thatamanil, J. (2020). Circling the Elephant: A comparative theology of religious diversity. Fordham University Press. Thiessen, J. (2015). The meaning of Sunday. McGill-Queen’s University Press. Wilkins-Laflamme, S. (2022). Second to none: Religious non-affiliation in the Pacific Northwest. In P.  Bramadat, P.  O’Connell Killen, & S.  Wilkins-Laflamme (Eds.), Religion at the edge: Nature, spirituality, and secularity in the Pacific Northwest (pp.  100–124). University of British Columbia Press. Wong, J. (2013). The work of “care” in Foucault’s care of the self. Philosophy Today, 57, 99–113.

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Paul Bramadat is Professor and Director of the Centre for Studies in Religion and Society at the University of Victoria. He is interested in religion, spirituality, and secularity in North America and Western Europe. His most recent publication is Religion at the Edge: Nature, Spirituality, and Secularity in the Pacific Northwest, edited with Patricia O’Connell Killen and Sarah WilkinsLaflamme (University of British Columbia Press 2022). Most recently he was awarded a SSHRC Insight Grant for Global Spiritualities, Local Bodies: Modern Postural Yoga in Canada and the United States, a 5-year project on the influence of national norms, policies, and discourses on the ways yoga is imagined, taught, marketed, and experienced in these two societies.  

Nature Connection as Spirituality, Wellbeing Practice, and Subjective Activism Henrik Ohlsson

Abstract  Activities for a deepened nature connection are promoted as ways to increase personal wellbeing and as a solution to the ecological crisis. This chapter is based on an ethnographic study of practices at the junction between spirituality, wellbeing practice, and social activism, practices which will here be referred to collectively as the nature connection movement. The practices include exercises of sensory attention and ritual activities, all of which seem to affect the way practitioners experience nature, leading to a proneness to experience communication with non-human entities, i.e., what can be classified as a form of animism. The chapter is divided into three main parts. The first seeks to place the movement in a contemporary cultural context and introduces the chapter’s central concept: subjective activism, which here refers to activism with an inward direction but with social ambitions. The second part describes the nature connection movement and its practices, which here serves as a case study of subjective activism. The third part discusses the potential social impacts of these practices in the light of Stephen Vaisey’s dual-process model for motivation and justification, and Philippe Descola’s modes of identification and modes of relation, which puts cognitive patterns and practical relations on equal footing as simultaneously cause and effect of each other. I conclude that the potential impacts range from temporary relief from the negative impacts of the current social order – in which case it may help to conserve that order – to a fundamental disruption. Keywords  Subjective activism · Nature connection · Wellbeing · Cultivation of experience · Dual-process · Modes of identification · Modes of relation · Animism

H. Ohlsson (*) Södertörn University, Huddinge, Sweden e-mail: [email protected] © The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2022 G. Mossière (ed.), New Spiritualities and the Cultures of Well-being, Religion, Spirituality and Health: A Social Scientific Approach 6, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-06263-6_10

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Perception, consciousness, and behavior are as radically interdependent as the rest of our biosphere. Thus, perceptual shifts alter consciousness, consciousness alters behavior, and even unconscious leanings alter perception. Given our blatant need for ecologically conscious and consistent behavior, honoring sensory and sensual experience may be fundamental to the preservation of the Earth. (Laura Sewall 1995: 203) For some forest bathers, the practice becomes an invitation to experience the consciousness of the more-than-human world. It is a powerful, beautiful, and radical form of activism. It is radical because it returns us to our roots through a “re-membering” of who we are. Then our actions become imbued with power and beauty, as our lives are increasingly informed by our growing networks of relatedness. (M. Amos Clifford 2018: 29)

I have chosen the above quotes to represent the theory and practice of what I will here refer to as the nature connection movement. Ecopsychologist Laura Sewall represents a school of thought, stretching between an academic discipline (sometimes leaning towards the spiritual) and a social movement with a programme for the radical transformation of human-nature relations. M.  Amos Clifford is the founder of ANFT, a U.S.-based organisation promoting forest therapy, a wellbeing practice strongly influenced by ecopsychology which, as the quote implies, is thought of as a remedy, not only for human individuals, but also for their relationships with the world at large, with potentially far-reaching social and ecological consequences. This raises the question: How are the ways in which we think and feel about ourselves connected to how we think and feel about – and act towards – the (non-­ human) world? Or in simpler terms: does changing the way we perceive the world change the world itself? This broad question can of course not be fully answered here. I believe, however, that a look at a contemporary practice that bridges, spirituality, wellbeing, and ecology will shed some light on the matter. This chapter consists of three main parts. In the first part, I will discuss spirituality, wellbeing, and social activism in our current historical situation and arrive at a definition of subjective activism, a concept that combines an inward focus with concern for the world. In the second part, I will present what I call the nature connection movement as I have come to know it in the course of 4 years of fieldwork. I will discuss how self-­ care and concern for the world are interconnected in its practice and ideology and how it seems to promote communicative interaction with non-human beings. Finally, in the third part, I will discuss the potential impacts of this subjective activism, posing two main questions: (1) To what extent is the inner experience of nature as described by practitioners a result of their practice? and (2) How is this inner experience connected to outer (social) change? One way to understand the increasing individualism associated with modernity and post-modernity is in terms of the subjective turn, a turn from a validation of life with reference to outer roles and obligations to one with reference primarily to one’s own inner experience and sense of authenticity (Taylor, 1992; Heelas & Woodhead, 2005). As part of this development, spirituality, characterised as individualistic and based on inner experience, is thought to be gradually taking over the role of traditional religion, the latter of which is characterised as formalistic, institutionalised, and dogmatic (Heelas & Woodhead, 2005).

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Postmodern forms of spirituality and personal development, emerging from the 1960s onwards as a simultaneous psychologization of spirituality and spiritualisation of psychology (Puttick, 2000), variously referred to as New Age, new spiritualities, or new religious movements, have been characterised as “Self-­religiosity”, “Self-spirituality”, or “a turn to the self” (Heelas, 1993). This notion of spirituality, characterised by attention to inner moods and to one’s own sense of authenticity, relates closely to wellbeing, defined as the sum of a wide range of subjectively evaluated measurements, primarily within the areas of life satisfaction, long-term and momentary moods, and sense of purpose in life (Dolan & Metcalfe, 2012). The boundaries between wellbeing and spirituality become fluid to the point where the two sometimes seem to merge into one and the same thing.1 While spirituality can be defined in contrast to religion, it is also implied in such definitions that there is a family resemblance between the two concepts. They both revolve around the same (types of) issues, or they have similar roles in a person’s life. Nancy Ammerman, building on decades of lived religion research, suggests approaching religion as a social practice like any other but with an extra dimension of something “‘other than’ everyday reality”: All social practice, [she argues], is characterized by embodiment, materiality, emotion, aesthetics, moral judgment, and narrative structuring. What distinguishes religious practice, in turn, is a seventh dimension, a spiritual dimension that invokes direct or indirect (institutionalized) connection to something that is “other than” everyday reality. (Ammerman, 2020: 9)

The nature connection practices described in this chapter can be easily subsumed under this definition. They include all dimensions of social practice, and, as we shall see, the experience of nature as something other than the everyday is clearly articulated – and can even be enhanced through ritual practices. Somewhat similarly, Bron Taylor has described an array of green activist movements as an emerging ecocentric religion, where religion is defined as “[…] that which connects and binds people to that which they most value, depend on, and consider sacred” (Taylor, 2010: 2, 40). In other words, religion is a level added to other levels of social practice, a level of ultimate concern which is somehow sacralised, i.e., set apart from the everyday. It is important to note that not all nature connection practitioners would consider their practice religious or spiritual. Many emphasise the scientific basis of their practice (the health benefits demonstrated in psychological and biomedical research) and would perhaps not be comfortable with the belief in supernatural or supersensory forces and beings that we often associate with religion and spirituality.2 With Ammerman’s and Taylor’s definitions, however, we may approach  Compare, e.g., the concepts body-soul spirituality (cf. Heelas & Woodhead, 2005) and holistic wellbeing (cf. Partridge, 2005), both of which can be taken to imply a state of balance on and between all levels of the human being, and between the human being and the world/cosmos. 2  The natural-supernatural divide is perhaps especially elusive in practices and discourses where the concepts nature and natural are given special attention, often resulting in some form of naturebased monism. This “nature”, however, can be perceived and described in a terminology borrowed 1

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it as a m ­ ultidimensional practice, where most dimensions cannot be considered as spiritual in and of themselves but all of which might gain strength and impact by their connection to that extra dimension that goes beyond or above the everyday. If inner experience, through the subjective turn, has become the main point of reference for value judgments, and if concern for and attention to this experience are connected with concern for and attention to the world at large, we can perhaps also speak of subjective activism. The subjective side of activism has been treated in terms of how oppositional consciousness is formed in oppressed groups and what motivates them to carry out acts of resistance (e.g., Mansbridge & Morris, 2001). In media research, the term subjective activism has been used to describe how the subject has gone from being a passive consumer to becoming an active creator of meaning (Morcelloni, 2008). Here, I am using the term to denote activism with an inward direction but with intentions that transcend the individual. I understand activism in general as activities, often but not necessarily collective, with a purpose of changing current social, political, or cultural structures and norms, often outside of established political institutions and channels. Activities aimed directly at influencing social policy or political institutions through means ranging from participation in public debate to civil disobedience, i.e., what the word activism normally brings to mind, will here be defined as objective activism. It is objective in the sense that it targets conditions and structures thought of as extrinsic to the individuals involved (although they may of course be internalised and reflected inside individuals). Subjective activism, then, is activism that works primarily on the subjective level, affecting inner experience. What makes it activism is either that it aims indirectly at achieving the same type of “outer” changes that objective activism aims for or that it conceives of inner and outer change as essentially and functionally the same thing. Subjective activism, even with this definition, is nothing new, although we can speculate, bearing the notion of an ongoing subjective turn in mind, that it may be on the rise. Looking back in history, we find obvious examples in some of the meditation movements of the 1960s and 1970s, notably the TM movement, which, especially during what has been called its “counterculture period”, presented its meditative practice as a remedy for social ills  – whose effects were claimed to extend far beyond the individual practitioners (Johnston, 1980). Other examples might be different kinds of Christian missionary and charity work, but only insofar as they strive for social change in the world. If their aims are only to relieve suffering and to save souls for the hereafter, they do not fall under my definition of activism.

from the natural sciences or in one taken from spiritual traditions and mythologies (cf. Taylor, 2010: 15; Hunter, 2018).

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1 The Nature Connection Movement I employ nature connection movement as a collective term for a plethora of organised practices designed to deepen people’s connection to nature. While there are differences in emphasis and aims between the organisations and individual providers and practitioners that constitute this movement, I find them to have enough commonalities in discourse and practice to justify bringing them together under a common term. The movement’s central ideas can be summarised as follows: 1. Humans are (or at least ought to be) part of nature; 2. The separation from nature (real or illusory) in our present cultural condition is the cause of many of our current mental (and often also physical) afflictions; 3. It is also the cause of the current ecological crisis. (Ohlsson, 2022: 63) These ideas can be expressed in different terminologies, sometimes leaning more toward, e.g., paganism, Eastern spiritualities, or concepts inspired by indigenous cultures, and sometimes more towards clinical psychology and biology. But the leading ideas, which I have sought to summarise in essence here, seem to constitute a common ground beneath the variety of influences, leanings, and expressions. They are consistent with what is sometimes called ecopsychology, which, in turn, can be placed in the wider field of deep ecology. To narrow the field, and to direct my attention toward processes of change, I have also established practice-related criteria: 1. Practices designed to deepen practitioners’ personal connection with natural environments and entities on sensory and/or emotional levels 2. For the purpose of personal wellbeing and/or social change in the direction of ecological sustainability. (Ohlsson, 2022: 64) Apart from ecopsychology (or the wider movement of deep ecology), other important influences are mindfulness, apparent in exercises of sensory awareness and bodily presence; and clinical research, both psychological and biomedical, which provides evidence of the benefits of nature connection. A large part of the practices included in this study are inspired by Japanese forest bathing (shinrin yoku) which originated in the 1980s and has developed there together with research on stress relief and immune system stimulation (Miyazaki, 2018; Li, 2018). In the course of this ethnographic study, I have conducted participant observations and recorded in-depth interviews with practitioners. I have used an open interview style, starting from an initial open question about how the person came to be involved in nature connection activities. Apart from the recorded interviews, I have been in continuous contact with practitioners in Sweden, Finland, Great Britain, and the United States, via email, social media, and informal social contacts. In sum, I have been enmeshed in the nature connection movement for about 4 years, not only during on-site fieldwork. I have also studied written material, e.g., websites and manuals produced by leading practitioners. I have been in contact with representatives of the following organisations:

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• The Association of Forest and Nature Therapy Guides and Programs (ANFT) was founded in the United States in 2013. It has branches around the world, including in the Nordic countries. Several of the European organisations listed below were founded by people trained by the ANFT. • Global Institute of Forest Therapy (GIFT) was founded in 2018. They have branches in Ireland, Canada, and the United States. • Forest Mind (Finnish: Metsämieli) was founded in 2014 and is based in Finland. • Forest Therapy Institute (FTI), originally European Forest Therapy Institute (EFTI), was founded in 2019. They have branches in Ireland, Spain, Portugal, and Argentina. FTI has subsequently been divided into Nádúr, based in Ireland and Forest Therapy Hub (FTH) with branches in Spain, Portugal, Italy, Poland, Chile, and Argentina. • Scandinavian Nature and Forest Therapy Institute (SNFTI) was founded in Sweden in 2019. • International Forest Therapy Days (IFTD) is a conference association bringing together a broad range of nature connection practitioners from across the world. It has to date organised two conferences in Finland in 2018 and 2019 and one online in September 2020. • Lodyn is a Swedish organisation founded in 2015 which uses the term nature awareness (Swedish: naturvakenhet) rather than forest bathing or forest therapy. Apart from nature awareness training, Lodyn takes an openly political stance advocating for the rights of nature as a Swedish branch of that global movement. Their practice is based on ecopsychology but an influence from paganism is also noticeable. The name Lodyn is taken from an old Norse Earth goddess. Many of the practitioners with whom I have been in contact are sole proprietors, offering nature connection sessions to small groups. These sole proprietors may or may not be affiliated with an organisation. In many cases, they have received training within one of the above organizations.

1.1 A New Self and a New World Ian Banyard, a prolific promotor in Britain and internationally of nature connection, which he mostly refers to as natural mindfulness, has a background in the world of corporate business. In a recent book (Banyard, 2018), he tells the story of how a decade of working too hard and meeting societal expectations eventually took its toll. Nature had been important in his childhood but became less so in adult life because of lack of time. However, walking mindfully in nature, he gradually brought himself back to balance: […] I began to reconnect with my love of Nature, walking on the fells, around the lakes, in the forests and along the shoreline, exploring the landscape around me. I also explored my inner landscape; the one full of memories, thoughts, feelings, experiences and insights. At times during these years of reclusion, I experienced anger, bitterness, guilt, shame, deep

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sadness and depression. I also experienced moments of a profound sense of inner balance, healing and intimate connection with the plants, animals and landscapes around me. The beauty and tranquillity of the natural world stimulated my senses and expanded my awareness. (Banyard, 2018: 14)

Many of the other nature connection providers with whom I have been in contact tell a similar story, a story of reciprocity between the outer and the inner landscape through which their personal wellbeing is transformed together with their general outlook on life. Tina, who has recently started offering forest bathing to small groups in forest areas around a mid-size Swedish city, has a background in management roles in the private and public sectors. A few years back, she had been “running too fast for too long” and had to quit and choose another path in life. Nature had always been there for her as a place of refuge and recuperation, but eventually it was not enough just to visit nature on weekends. She needed to reorient her life and let nature take centre stage (Interview with Tina, Nov. 10, 2019). Eleonora, an experienced organising practitioner of forest bathing and forest therapy, moved abroad when she was quite young, practiced Zen meditation for many years, and later trained to be a clinical psychologist. The latter brought her into one of her first nine-to-five jobs, which apparently did not sit well with her free-­ roaming spirit and, together with the burdens of family life, eventually led to a period of burnout fatigue. Nature had been there for Eleonora since childhood. Slow walks in the forest, together with her long experience of meditation, became her way back – again, not back to the way things were before, but to a new version of her life and of herself (Interview with Eleonora, Apr. 18, 2018). Elisabeth, who is part of an organising committee for a “life cairn ceremony”, briefly described below, grew up in a highly urban area in Stockholm apart from summers spent in the archipelago. As soon as she could make her own choices regarding living arrangements, she moved closer to nature. At various times in her life, she has struggled with periods of depression, but the closer she gets to nature, the better she feels. Connecting and communicating with a living world, with plants, animals, places, and sometimes nature as a whole, seems to reflect back inside as a feeling of being more alive, happy, and at peace. The natural surroundings can cause instant mood-­ changes, usually in a positive direction. These positive feelings associated with nature, often described with words like “beauty”, “magic”, or “wonder”, pose a contrast to the greyness of everyday reality. While it is likely that most people who participate in and organise nature connection activities share a natural proclivity for such feelings, and for connecting emotionally with nature, it seems that this ability to be affected by the surroundings can also be maintained and enhanced through practice, so that we may speak of a cultivation of experience.

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1.2 Community and Communication It is unsurprising that spending time in natural environments is associated with positive emotions and recuperation. What is perhaps somewhat less expected is the degree to which practitioners experience something like interpersonal communication with non-human entities. Eleonora describes her current condition as a state of constant communication with the landscape around her (Second interview with Eleonora 20 Aug. 2020). Experiences of communication are reported by almost all practitioners I have met and interviewed in this milieu. It can involve animals, trees, stones, or places. In the case of places, communication can be experienced in the form of animals that appear, the wind blowing in the leaves, or simply as a feeling of being welcomed (or not). The whole of nature is experienced as a community. This community becomes recuperating because it lacks social demands and stratification, but also because it is full of living beings. Practitioners have often had experiences of communication earlier in life, but they seem to be confirmed, maintained, and strengthened through the practice.

1.3 Cultivation of Experience How, then, is this cultivation of experience achieved? If there is one feature that is ubiquitous in all the versions of nature connection practice I have come across, it is the central role of sensory attention. For example, one of the first collective exercises during a session of forest bathing, as I have experienced it is almost always a gathering in a circle where the guide or instructor invites the participants on a journey through their senses, asking them to pay attention to what they hear, what they see, what the wind feels like on their skins, what the air tastes like, etc. It also involves being aware of one’s own body, feeling the feet resting on the ground, and being present in that particular place and moment in time. This is in line with the mindfulness movement, which I consider as a major influence in nature connection practice. This sensory attention – towards the surrounding landscape and towards one’s own body seems to serve the dual purpose of personal wellbeing (by “landing in the body”, reducing stress, etc.) and of relating emotionally and communicatively to the landscape. The attention, one might say, is directed simultaneously inwards and outwards. Eleonora explains how sensory attention becomes a two-way communication: When I touch something, it’s a communication. And then in the deeper levels of forest bathing it’s also to be touched by a blueberry leaf or a taste or a tree. It’s a relational communication which can be very important and create context, a sense of context and, and existential meaning – belonging: “I am seen”, when one realises that all living things have senses. So, everything can relate to me in its own way; the fly can do it, the tree can do it, the land, the Earth itself is alive. (Second interview with Eleonora 20 Aug. 2020)

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Guides often point out to the participants that, just as we aware of the landscape, the landscape is also aware of us (at least through the senses of the various animals that inhabit it, but often it seems that the landscape as a whole is felt to possess some kind of awareness). In one exercise that I experienced during a conference and retreat in Finland led by a guide from Forest Mind in Finland in July 2019, we were instructed to find some detail in the landscape – a tree or flower or rock or whatever we found appealing that seemed to call for our attention – and to focus our attention entirely on that before trying to turn the perspective around so that we could see ourselves from the perspective of that tree, flower, rock, etc. Moreover, attention is not only heightened but also redirected towards certain aspects and qualities. In many exercises in the ANFT model of forest bathing and in European models that have developed from the ANFT model, participants are instructed to pay attention to specific colours, light and shadow, or movements. This strengthens attention to detail as well as the sense for aesthetic qualities. Participants in forest bathing sessions I have attended have often expressed delight in discovering the beauty in small details that they would not have noticed during an ordinary walk in the forest. Other exercises involve creating little pieces of art from the available natural materials, singing to or with the landscape, and finding its poetic qualities. One example of the latter is an exercise I participated in during a workshop with Lodyn in June 2019 during which the participants were instructed to write one or two lines about each of three selected trees. Afterwards, we gathered in groups to combine the lines into poems. This was a way of becoming attentive to the unique qualities of each tree, thus transforming the trees into personalities. These examples of methods that strengthen and redirect participants’ attention are part of what I call cultivation of experience. It is not hard to imagine how such emotional and communicative relationships with the landscape could lead to increased environmental concern. Again, however, it is difficult to distinguish the effects of nature connection practice from values and attitudes that these individuals had already developed before taking up the practice.

1.4 Ritual Practices Many of the practices studied here are ritualised or contain elements of ritual. A typical forest bathing session, as I have experienced them according to the model first designed by the ANFT, lasts about 3–4  h and often begins with participants crossing some kind of threshold or gate to set the session apart from the everyday. This is followed by a series of exercises, usually starting with the above-described journey through the senses, interspersed by experience-sharing circles, to which the participants are called by some signal, such as the sound of a flute or an imitated bird call. The session usually ends with a tea ceremony where herbal tea, preferably made from local herbs, is served in beautiful ceramic cups placed on an ornamented piece of cloth. One additional cup can be sent around in which the participants

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project their thoughts and feelings of gratitude before it is poured out on the ground as a way of giving thanks to the place. Catherine Bell has proposed six criteria that ritual-like activities may fulfil to a greater or lesser extent: formalism, traditionalism, disciplined invariance, rule-­ governance, sacred symbolism, and performance (Bell, 1997: 138). She argues that ritual practice in the West has undergone a paradigm shift which has led to rituals and ritual-like activities today being primarily inward-focused, i.e., they aim to bring about an inner change in the participating individuals, rather than being primarily about external social structures and functions. This also means that rather than the authority of its performer or its traditional basis, the primary measurement of the legitimacy of a ritual or a ritual-like activity is now its direct impact on the participants – another manifestation of the subjective turn (Bell, 1997: 240–2). The rituals or ritual-like activities practiced in nature connection circles fit well into this new paradigm. They are all about the participants’ personal experiences. Regarding the six basic criteria, they fulfil Bell’s first four only to a limited degree. They are not highly formalistic nor founded in long historical traditions. They do not require disciplined adherence to invariant patterns and strict rules. The last two criteria are met to a much higher degree. An important aspect of what Bell calls sacred symbolism is the framing or separation of a place or time that creates the sacred sphere (Bell, 1997: 156–59). This is seen clearly in many forms of nature connection activities, e.g., in the framing of a place by using trees or natural formations as thresholds or portals through which the participants enter in the beginning of a forest bathing session or in the formation of circles in which experiences are shared and in which the place is explicitly thanked and honoured. Bell’s final criterion, performance, contributes to the framing and sacralisation by creating a total experience of scents; flavours; and tactile, audial, and visual impressions that enhance the effect of the ritual on many levels simultaneously. This is a salient trait of nature connection practice displayed, for instance, in the serving of fragrant herbal tea in beautiful cups, or in the calling back to the circle using a flute or by imitating a bird call. To some extent, the effects that these ritual-like activities have on the participants can probably be achieved through ordinary discourse within a community of like-­ minded people. However, the (partial) ritualisation may contribute to the efficiency of this communication by framing it spatially and temporally which serves to set it apart from the everyday and imbues it with strong emotions. The heightened level of deliberacy in speech and gestures underlines the importance of what is being communicated (Rappaport, 1999: 50–2). The performative elements, such as the aesthetically appealing teacups, the flavour of the tea, the flute or imitated bird call that signals the gathering, all contribute to multi-level communication (Bell, 1997: 138). In the circles, participants share their experiences, perceptions, emotions, and communications with non-human beings. In this way, their own experiences are confirmed and validated, while those of others serve as a source of inspiration. Perhaps most importantly, the framing and lifting of a time and place out of the everyday add what may be called a spiritual level (as defined above) which enhances the effect of the other levels (Ammerman, 2020: 27). Many of my interlocutors indeed seem to experience similar conditions during individual forest walks as well.

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However, it seems likely that the ritual-like setting contributes to enhancing it and perhaps to making the participants more skilled in achieving it on their own. Other examples of ritualised activities practiced within the nature connection movement, also with internationally proliferated basic structures, are the “life cairn ceremony”, where stones are piled up in a manifestation of grief over lost species (Jørgensen, 2018), and the “council of all beings”, designed by Joanna Macy and John Seed, where the participants connect with specific species in a given ecosystem and performatively represent them in a council in which the specific grievances of each species are expressed (Seed et al., 1988). These activities are not about training one’s direct sensory attention but rather about paying attention to the needs of other organisms and enhancing the ability to change perspectives. They are organised in a semi-political manner as manifestations of protest against the devastation of ecosystems and the extinction of species. However, my own observation, after participating in these activities under the Aegis of Lodyn, is that they are still practised primarily for the participants own experience and for their personal connections with the larger ecological community. In this way, these rituals too fulfil Bell’s criteria for the new ritual paradigm. They are not practiced outside of government or corporate offices but instead usually in places where the participants can have some privacy within their own community. Lodyn is, as mentioned above, an organisation that combines exercises that help individuals deepen their personal nature connection with openly political campaigns for the rights of nature. The life-cairn ritual and the council of all beings can be placed somewhere in between. A version of the “council of all beings” is also used in the training of forest bathing guides within the Scandinavian Forest Therapy Institute.3

2 The Potential Impacts of Subjective Activism The above descriptions serve here as a case study of subjective activism. What, then, can we say about its potential impacts within as well as beyond the practicing individual? Let us begin by noting some areas where the nature connection movement appears to have had some social impact. One is the integration of nature connection as a health-promoting practice in conventional healthcare systems. In Japan and Korea, forest bathing has developed in a close relationship with research and official health policy (Miyazaki, 2018; Li, 2018). Several of my interlocutors among nature connection practitioners in the Nordic countries are actively involved in efforts to integrate their practices with conventional healthcare. Some are professionally active within the healthcare sector and integrate some of these methods in their work. Some are also involved in research projects within the field of environmental

 This according to a conversation with a representative of SFTI during a training event.

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psychology. In Sweden, a recent pilot study aiming to explore the possibilities of integrating forest therapy into conventional care concluded that: [a] 6-week forest therapy intervention programme, is a feasible and promising intervention in mental health care for those diagnosed with moderate to severe levels of exhaustion, anxiety and depression. (Cau Wetterholm, 2020: 114)

Another area of impact is the partially successful4 campaigns for the rights of nature, with which some groups and individuals within the nature connection movement are deeply involved. While this is certainly not the sole achievement of the nature connection movement as it is defined in this chapter, the movement is arguably playing an important part in these campaigns, and the idea of granting legal personhood to nature and to specific ecosystems is in line with the communicative relationships with non-human entities cultivated in the movement. A third area of impact may be the discussions concerning ecosystem services, where social, cultural, and health-related services have received increasing attention lately (Milcu et  al., 2013). Here, nature connection promotors are playing in an arena of consumerism, developing partially new ways of consuming nature. Being a consumer means having to develop personal tastes and preferences in many different areas, such as art, clothing, or, in this case, landscapes. The development of consumer culture may already have had an impact on the way in which people today appreciate nature (Thurfjell, 2020: 186–7). And nature connection practice may contribute to this development, but perhaps also to consumption patterns that are less harmful for the environment. This immaterial consumption of nature does not eliminate the need for material resources from nature. It may, however, when different categories of ecosystem services are weighed against each other, add some extra considerations apart from maximum efficiency in the material extraction processes. In this way, the movement may have an impact within the boundaries of the current social structure.

2.1 Experience and Social Relations The areas of influence listed above are examples of the impacts of this movement as a social movement or through its members’ social engagements in the form of promotions of health practice, campaigns, and participation in public debates. All of this falls under the category of objective activism, with the definition made in part 1 of this chapter. It takes aim at outer structures, and the motivations of individual activists may or may not be causally linked to the nature connection practice in which they take part. Let us thus return to the questions posed in the introduction:

 Ecuador and some U.S. states have already implemented some version of the rights of nature in their legal systems. Bolivia is in the process of doing so. A growing number of specific local ecosystems in countries around the world have also been granted legal personhood rights (all according to the website of the Global Alliance for The Rights of Nature, GARN). 4

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(1) To what extent is the inner experience of nature, described by practitioners, a result of their practice? and (2) How is this inner experience connected to outer (social) change? The first difficulty is that practitioners likely had a proneness to having deep nature experiences even before they began active practice. Like Ian Banyard, many of my other interlocutors in the world of nature connection recall childhood memories of nature. Tina always had places in nature wherever she and her parents lived during her childhood, like a big rock in the forest or a cliff by the sea, to which she could turn to find comfort when she was feeling down or had a disagreement with her parents (Interview with Tina Nov. 10, 2019). Eleonora recalls building little huts in the forest and being in a state of bliss, sensing that “there may be more to the animals than was commonly ascribed to them […]” (interview with Eleonora 18 Apr. 2018). Elisabeth fondly remembers her father showing her how to pet bumblebees as one example of how her parents and grandparents conveyed a fascination with the natural world and taught her to respect it (interview with Elisabeth 10 Dec. 2019). Thus, it is likely that people who are drawn to nature connection practice already have a higher than average proneness to connecting with nature and to being emotionally affected by it. On the other hand, the childhood memories that they recall today while being interviewed or writing for publication are of course also filtered through their adult minds and their current values and convictions. Is this experience then caused by the nature connection practice in which they now take part or is that practice an expression of a mode of experience already present? I believe it is a little bit of both. The proneness is of course there in the people who are drawn to this movement, but the practice also helps to maintain, reinforce, and reformulate experiences that may have been there in some form during childhood, but which easily get lost in a modern adult life. As we saw above, Eleonora claims that years of forest bathing practice has enabled her to instantly change her mood for the better by noticing some small detail in her surroundings. It has also made her earlier sporadic communicative experiences grow into a “constant communication with everything around [her]”. (second interview with Eleonora 20 Aug. 2020). Regarding the second question, the difficulty is that even if it can be established that the practices do have an impact on inner experience, we must distinguish between motivations and justifications and consider the possibility that ideas and convictions associated with nature connection practice may fall under the second category, i.e., that they are structures of meaning employed post factum to make sense of a lifestyle or a course of action rather than driving forces that cause it. There has been considerable debate in social psychology and cognitive anthropology on the matter of how cultural meaning relates to social behaviour, i.e., whether it is causal or merely interpretive. Stephen Vaisey (2009) has developed a dual-­ process model where cultural meaning can be found on both sides, both as causes and as interpretations. He demonstrates, based on his findings in longitudinal data from the United States, that religious beliefs do indeed seem to predict behaviour, and not only to serve as a tool for retrospective sense-making.

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In the case we are looking at here, the communicative relationships that nature connection practitioners develop with non-human beings, which can be classified as a form of animism, are expressed primarily on emotional, perceptual, and cognitive levels. We may ask, then, how this relates to more practical levels. Graham Harvey defines animists as: “[…] people who recognise that the world is full of persons, only some of whom are human, and that life is always lived in relationship with others” (Harvey, 2006: XI). One of the major divisions in the scholarly discussions of animism concerns the question whether people relate to non-human beings socially because they think of them as persons/subjects, or whether people think of non-human beings as persons/subjects because they relate socially to them (Bird-­ David, 1999; Harvey, 2006: 3). Philippe Descola offers a model through which this can be viewed from both perspectives, consisting of modes of identification and modes of relation, which he puts on equal terms, each impacted by the other (Descola, 2013: 112–125). Modes of dentification refers to ways of assigning ontological status and basic properties to an entity. At the heart of identification, lies a fundamental distinction between interiority and physicality, which we experience in ourselves and can thus either recognize or not recognize in entities outside of ourselves. Modes of relation, then, are the ways in which we relate, socially and practically, to entities outside of ourselves, and how they, in turn, relate to other entities. The two types of modes work side by side, each affecting the other. With this model, we can think of subjective activism as activism working primarily on our modes of identification, and, in this way, also affecting our modes of relation. Objective activism, then, works from the opposite direction. Along with Vaisey’s and Descola’s views on cultural behaviour, we may expect that experiences of communication and connectedness may have the role of both motivations and justifications, and that an impetus for social action may originate in the patterns of experience just as well as in those of social relations. A practice that makes practitioners increasingly prone to identify non-human beings as subjects would then perceivably disrupt the basic capitalist social relations of production and consumption – relations that, at least within a capitalist framework, require a division between subjects and objects.

2.2 Conclusions In modern Western cultures, we have, for the most part, been educated and encultured into perceiving nature from a distanced position as a collection of objects in a way that allows us to extract what we need for production and consumption. A practice that supports a perception of nature as consisting of subjects is in that way fundamentally opposed to the current social order. At the same time, the packaging and organisation of the practice seems to reflect that same order. Looking at the providers of nature connection practice, with whom I have become acquainted in the course of this study, it may be noted that many of them are people of enterprise

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and determination – as can be expected of people who take key positions in a burgeoning social movement and wellbeing practice. They often conduct their practice as sole proprietors – entrepreneurs – marketing their services for consumption. In this way, they are integrated in the spirit of capitalism. The practices may also contribute to consumer culture by stimulating the development of new patterns of consumption and to a neoliberal ethics by placing the principal responsibility for health and wellbeing, as well as for the ecological crisis, inside the individual mind. In other words, while patterns that reflect current social conditions may be reproduced in the movement’s social and organisational structure, it also cultivates a seed which may grow into something very different, given the proper conditions. As we have seen, it may be approached as a wellbeing practice, connecting the wellbeing of the human individual with that of a wider ecological community, or as subjective activism, striving to change the world by changing the way we perceive it. The spiritual dimension, moreover, can serve as an amplifier for both personal and social impacts, by lifting the practice out of the everyday (Ammerman, 2020). The social effects of this cultivation of experience are of course dependent on a number of external factors. It may also be crucial whether its effects on the individual are shallow and short-term, in which case they might simply offer relief from some of the unpleasant effects of the current social order (such as feelings of alienation) and thus contribute to its conservation, or whether they are deep and long-­ term, in which case they may contribute to its disruption.

Sources and References Unpublished Sources Interviews and participatory observations conducted between February 2018 and August 2020 in Sweden and Finland .

References Ammerman, N.  T. (2020, July). Rethinking religion: Toward a practice approach. American Journal of Sociology, 126(1), 6–51. Banyard, I. (2018). Natural mindfulness: Your personal guide to the healing power of Nature Connection. Vision Maker Press. Bell, C. (1997). Ritual: Perspectives and dimensions. Oxford University Press. Bird-David, N. (1999, February). Animism revisited: Personhood, environment, and relational epistemology. Current Anthropology, 40(Supplement), S67–S91. Cau Wetterholm, P. E. (2020). From forest bathing as a preventive wellness practice to a forest therapy treatment intervention in public mental health care: A forest therapy group intervention for exhaustion disorder, anxiety and depression. In C. Gallis & W. S. Shin (Eds.), Forests for public health. Cambridge Scholars Publishing, Lady Stephenson Library. Clifford, M.  A. (2018). Your guide to forest bathing: Experience the healing power of nature. Conari Press.

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Descola, P. (2013[2005]). Beyond nature and culture (J.  Lloyd, Trans.). The University of Chicago Press. Dolan, P., & Metcalfe, R. (2012, April). Measuring subjective wellbeing: Recommendations on measures for use by national governments. Journal of Social Policy, 41(02), 409–427. https:// doi.org/10.1017/S0047279411000833 Harvey, G. (2006). Animism: Respecting the living world. Columbia University Press. Heelas, P. (1993). The new age in cultural context: The premodern, the modern and the postmodern. Religion, 23, 103–116. Heelas, P., & Woodhead, L. (2005). The spiritual revolution: Why religion is giving way to spirituality. Blackwell Publishing Ltd. Hunter, J. (2018). Preliminary report on extraordinary experiences in permaculture: Collapsing the natural/supernatural divide. Journal of Exceptional Experiences and Psychology, 6(1), 13–22. Johnston, H. (1980, July). The marketed social movement: A case study of the rapid growth of TM. The Pacific Sociological Review, 23(3), 333–354. Jørgensen, D. (2018). After none: Memorialising animal species extinction through monuments. In N. Cushing & J. Frawley (Eds.), Animals count: How population size matters in animal-human relations (pp. 183–199). Routledge. Li, Q. (2018). Forest bathing: How trees can help you find health and happiness. Viking. Mansbridge, J., & Morris, A. (Eds.). (2001). Oppositional consciousness: The subjective roots of social protest. University of Chicago Press. Milcu, A. I., Hanspach, J., Abson, D., & Fischer, J. (2013). Cultural ecosystem services: A literature review and prospects for future research. Ecology and Society, 18(3), 44. Miyazaki, Y. (2018). Shinrin Yoku: The Japanese art of forest bathing. Timber Press. Morcelloni, M. (2008). Digital media and socialization. In P. C. Rivoltella (Ed.), Digital literacy: Tools and methodologies for information society. IGI Publishing. Ohlsson, H. (2022). Facing nature: Cultivating experience in the nature connection movement [Södertörn doctoral dissertations]. Partridge, C. (2005). The re-enchantment of the West: Volume II, alternative spiritualities, sacralization, popular culture and occulture. T&T Clark International. Puttick, E. (2000). Personal development: The spiritualisation and secularisation of the human potential movement. In S. Sutcliffe & M. Bowman (Eds.), Beyond new age: Exploring alternative spirituality. Edinburgh University Press. Rappaport, R. A. (1999). Ritual and religion in the making of humanity. Cambridge University Press. Seed, J., Macy, J., Fleming, P., & Naess, A. (1988). Thinking like a mountain: Towards a council of all beings. New Society Publishers. Sewall, L. (1995). The skill of ecological perception. In Ecopsychology: Restoring the Earth, healing the mind. Counterpoint. Taylor, C. (1992). The ethics of authenticity. Harvard University Press. Taylor, B. (2010). Dark green religion: Nature spirituality and the planetary future. University of California Press. Thurfjell, D. (2020). Granskogsfolk: Hur naturen blev svenskarnas religion. Norstedts. Vaisey, S. (2009, May). Motivation and justification: A dual-process model of culture in action. American Journal of Sociology, 114(6), 1675–1715. The University of Chicago Press. Henrik Ohlsson, PhD in the study of religion from Södertörn University, is interested in humannature relations from historical, ethnographic, and phenomenological perspectives. He has conducted field research in the Nordic countries among people engaged in organized practice for a deepened connection with nature. His earlier academic interests include issues concerning secularization in general and a particular focus on state policies toward religion in post-Soviet Central Asia.  

Do Gaga, Be Well? Well-Being as Intersectional Dispositif in the Neo-­ spiritual Israeli Movement Practice Gaga Lina Aschenbrenner and Anne Koch

Abstract  With late modernity, “religion” has changed again in manifold ways its cultural shape, partly towards a preference for experiential embodied practices, health preservation, and an even closer relation to consumerist habits. The chapter explores the place of the well-being dispositif within these dynamics and further relevant framings, such as therapy culture, fitness, and health prevention, self-­ responsibility, self-enhancement, lifestyle aesthetization, art, and, of course, neoliberalism. A concrete example is that of the neo-spiritual Israeli and now global dance and movement practice “Gaga” that is reconstructed from data obtained in field research conducted from 2017 to 2018 at Suzanne Dellal Center in Tel Aviv—the Israeli home base of Gaga. What is illuminating in the example is the non-Christian and extra-European yet global and neoliberal context of a well-being culture, as well as the intersection of this movement practice with art. After depicting the selling-­point strategy of Gaga Movement Ltd. targeting health, fitness, and coping with life, Gaga teachers’ instructions in Gaga classes together with participants’ experiences are analyzed as powerful artistic-aesthetic body techniques targeting this goal. Towards this backdrop, we question the dominance of the neoliberal framework and interpret Gaga’s particular well-being dispositif vis-à-vis other influential cultural dispositifs enumerated above. We expect that well-being culture is beyond its zenith as attention shifts away from strong, self-caring, and independent neoliberal subjects towards interdependent and vulnerable subjects. Keywords  Dispositif · Well-being · Therapy culture · Aesthetization of lifestyle · Neoliberalism · Spirituality · Contemporary religion · Dance · Awe · Body · Healing L. Aschenbrenner Study of Religion and Culture, Ludwig-Maximilian‘s University Munich, Munich, Germany Religious Studies, Paris-Lodron-University Salzburg, Salzburg, Austria A. Koch (*) Faculty of Theology, Ludwig University of Freiburg, Freiburg, Germany e-mail: [email protected] © The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2022 G. Mossière (ed.), New Spiritualities and the Cultures of Well-being, Religion, Spirituality and Health: A Social Scientific Approach 6, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-06263-6_11

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This chapter reflects on the particular ethics of well-being, performed and adapted in the context of neo-spiritual practices, and Gaga—originally an Israeli and now a global dance and movement practice—serves as the example. Introduced as a main training method for the dancers of the Batsheva Dance Company in the early 1990s, Gaga was soon made available to Tel Avivians as a leisure-time movement activity, and by 2013—due to the establishment of a Gaga teacher program—it could be practiced “in at least 125 cities in thirty different countries, albeit with varying frequency” (Friedes Galili, 2015, 367). We start by setting out the Gaga example within the triangular reference frame of the critical investigations of this book, composed of (a) new spiritualities, (b) the ethics of well-being or normative well-being cultures, and (c) the neoliberal paradigm. Instead of neoliberalism as a “cultural ideology” or “zeitgeist” (Gauthier et al., 2013, 15), we follow Foucault’s understanding of neoliberalism as a specific bundle of practices (Foucault, 2008). This is a first measure to de-mythologize the overall global-market framework in the sociology of religion. However, we aim to lend the generalized diagnosis of a neoliberal cultural ideology some critical and more distanced thoughts as well. In this sense, this chapter critically examines the theoretical triangle of well-being ethics, neo-spirituality, and neoliberal practices that has become a sort of standard lens, mainly in sociology, through which to perceive the last four decades. As first necessary addendum we introduce the triangle’s overlapping and relations towards the influential dispositifs of therapy culture, fitness, and health preservation on the one hand and self-responsibility, self-­ enhancement, and aesthetization of lifestyle on the other. Following discourse theory inspired by the sociology of knowledge, we understand “dispositif” as a historical configuration of several subdiscourses that are stable over a long period of time (e.g., for at least a decade) with “an infra-structure of discourse production and as a device for the realization of power effects of discourse” (Keller, 2005, 7) that, nevertheless, may alter with every repetition and adaptation. This infrastructure is “established by social actors or collectivities in order to resolve a particular situation” (Keller, 2020, 41). The concept “dispositif” makes way for the important role of actors and their links with material and legal institutional forms of power execution (Keller, 2005, 5; Johnston & von Stuckrad, 2020). As every ethics of well-being is embedded into the named precedent infrastructures solving more general challenges and being dependent on their complexion and rule-governance, we will have to ask which societal challenges are solved by well-being ethics. A second concept that needs some considerations beforehand is that of neo-­ spirituality. Social differentiation theory, analyzing deep societal change with first modernity of the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, brought forth a concept of religion suitable for churches and church-like organizations within the nation-state. Since then, with pervasive neoliberal practices, the picture has changed in second modernity. Former taxonomies of private–public, religious–secular, and religious–neo/spiritual lose their significance insofar as they were meant for another order (Gauthier, 2020, 12–15). One might refrain from using “spiritual” as a meta concept at all and opt for “religion”/“religious” instead, only describing the emic uses of “spiritual/ity” (Streib & Klein, 2016). However, we share the observation that “‘spirituality’ has emerged as a relatively ‘silent’ category with which people

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often signal that they are looking for a way to navigate between the categories of the religious and the secular” (Fedele & Knibbe, 2020, book description). In this context, “neo-spiritualities” provide a useful concept—even if a much-­underdetermined label—often used as an umbrella term for a broad variety of “alternative” religious practices of the past three decades and practices stemming from the spiritual growth movement; therapeutic awareness meditation; the Next Age; and informal, privatized self-care. Here, neo-spiritualities are meant to include secularist practices, by which we mean practices in secular language and contexts, such as leisure time, vacation activities, management coaching, or continued education for the workplace (Hornborg, 2013; Streib & Klein, 2016). This is one reason to call them neo-spiritual as they are distinct from practices that aim at salvation or connectedness with a higher being—such as the universe in the former New Age movement (Sutcliffe & Gilhus, 2013). The term also marks the higher degree of secular terminology and neoliberal habits in the narrative (e.g., overlapping with creative arts, branding and consumer-orientedness). Well-being has been advanced as a central argument and goal to providers and consumers of these neo-spiritual practices (Hornborg, 2013). Well-being also gains typical dynamics from a therapy culture dispositif with a strong individualization of healthcare, a permanent popularization of medical knowledge, and a demand for preventive care as continuous work. Gaga shares novel bodily practices with the therapeutic field, such as breathing (pranayama as a psycho technique in the field of modern global yoga), mindfulness meditation (especially in workforce trainings), and forms of dancing (e.g., contact dance, biodanza, open floor, 5Rhythm, and Tamalpa). In the context of these practices, the body functions as a place of proof and probation for successful improvement of well-being (Koch, 2017). Moreover, “feeling oneself” is often said to be accompanied by a withdrawal from doctrine. Nevertheless, even if vague, neo-spiritual practices maintain a worldview that serves to construct a self that is embedded within a holistic world. Novel, therapeutic, bodily practices became more popular during the past few decades also in contexts of coaching, management consulting, and secularist well-being, and they are promoted as adding value to the workplace and enhancing work performance. That is not to deny their prehistory since the 1920s in partnership with counseling and management training regarding “emotional capitalism” with its “therapeutic emotional style” (Illouz, 2007, 5, 6). Advanced, post-industrial, semantic web-3.0 societies’ well-being and therapy culture dispositifs are closely linked to a dispositif that demands highly self-­ responsible and self-organized subjects (Houtman & Aupers, 2010) and that is of utmost importance for the ethics of well-being. They respond to neoliberal and postmaterialist needs for self-realization, authenticity, an emotional-embodied intensity, and self-betterment. Bodily involvement is a central requirement of participants: well-being is reached via bodily transformation (see the example of Gaga below). These dispositifs are characterized by their dense and rapid fluctuation of knowledge from psychology, nutrition science, and medicine to popularized nutrition, healing, and health preservation. A further often-overlooked framework is the dispositif of aesthetization of lifestyle that began in the 1970s (Lash, 1993). It is closely linked not only to the subjective turn in religious culture and its high expressionism and appreciation for

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creativity (Koch, 2017) but also to identity-building through aesthetic consumption. The expressive mode of dance must be seen within the subjective turn of modern religion and is also located within the aesthetic framework of art. Therefore, not only neoliberalism and a Christian (Protestant) tradition within religion regulate subjectivities and force subjects towards continuous self-improvement; of strong influence are also the ideals of art to carve out a more perfect and beautiful expression, for example in early body-building as it became influential for yoga reception in Western countries. Art is another important and relevant reference here that turned itself towards subjective cultures, similarly to other practices in late modern societies. We subsume art to our aesthetization of the lifestyle dispositif within which art is popularized and, in a sense, democratized to cater to individualist needs. Art practices not only potentially emphasize expressivity, which is essential to portray an image of oneself on social media, but also offers positive emotions of aesthetic delight and appreciation, especially if linked to a movement style such as Gaga. After this brief layout of the discursive infrastructure, we will now turn to the specific case of Gaga as a realization of an ethics of well-being.

1 The Israeli Context, the Field Work, and Gaga Practice The contemporary cultural, social, and religious landscape creates a very specific ritual setting for Gaga classes and, thus, for the research setting itself: the majority of Israel’s population considers itself “nonreligious” and is, from a sociological point of view, “secular” as opposed to “religious” orthodox and ultra-orthodox Jews (Ruah-Midbar, 2012, 103)—the interviewed Gaga participants form part of this secular Israeli sub-group. Israel is a nation state based on a “historic” Judaism exploited for Zionist means (Weissbrod, 2014, 22–23), where Judaism remains as civil religion and cultural asset in the form of a “secular Judaism” (Ruah-Midbar, 2012, 104). However, it is only recently that Judaism has undergone a transformation towards trendy and popular religion or a Jewish New Age (Kaplan & Werczberger, 2017, 577), enabling its practitioners to retain their “secular Israeli Jewish identity” (Werczberger & Azulay, 2011, 108–109). Jewish New Age forms part of a greater development: the rise of New Age practices in neoliberal Israel of the late 1990s. Israeli scholarship dedicated to the research of this New Age phenomenon subsumes under this category a vast variety of practices such as “alternative medicine treatment methods,” “human potential workshops,” “channeling,” “[f]estivals celebrating New Age culture,” “New Age stores,” “Eastern and indigenous techniques such as Buddhist (mainly Vipassana) meditation,” “yoga,” “tai chi and neo-shamanism,” and “neo-paganism” (Werczberger & Huss, 2014, 6)—an encompassing view, which would include the above-mentioned neo-spiritual practices. Scholars also mention, “New Age vocabulary is embedded in […] Hebrew,” and “New Age ideas and practices have also found a place in typical mainstream institutions such as the Israeli public medical services, […] and the public education system, which has recently started to include activities such as Yoga and other

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Oriental spiritual practices” (Ruah-Midbar & Zaidman, 2013, 424). It does not go unobserved that the group of Israeli New Age practitioners is very socially selective: it is not only missing the “religious” but also the Israeli Arabs (Simchai & Keshet, 2015) and other social classes, which lack the cultural “playfulness and ease” (Kaplan & Werczberger, 2017, 577) to partake in these practices or lack the monetary funds—as “New Age practitioners offer their services in exchange for money” (Zaidman, 2007, 368). The examination of Gaga is based on data acquired during Lina Aschenbrenner’s body-focused ethnography in Gaga classes at the Suzanne Dellal Center in Tel Aviv sporadically from 2016 to 2018 (Aschenbrenner, forthcoming). The Israeli context seemed appealing because of the worldwide unique number of Gaga classes held at the center daily, as well as because Israel is the place of origin of the publicly offered Gaga practice. Qualitative data was collected in participant observations in up to three Gaga classes a day with a focus on Gaga’s aesthetics and aims to provide an encompassing analysis of the practice’s embodied effect on participants from a non-professional dance background. In addition, nine qualitative narrative interviews were conducted, and four participants were asked to keep experience diaries over the course of several classes. Participants ranged in age from 26 to 67; eight of them identified as female, five as male; they were all Israeli passport holders, living in Tel Aviv; and they were characterizable as secular Israeli-Jews, some mentioning American, Argentinian, Russian, and British family backgrounds. Data was completed through several in-field conversations with Gaga participants and teachers, and communication took place in English. The guided dance or rather movement improvisation practice Gaga has become a major leisure-time activity for people around the world. It shares the common neo-­ spiritual practices’ characteristics to foster well-being: body- and experience-­ centeredness, a focus on the present, self-responsibility, and active participation. For participants, it is Gaga’s aesthetics and its sensory effect that matter most. What unites Gaga with other neo-spiritual movement practices such as yoga, t’ai chi, Feldenkrais, but also different modern dance techniques, is shared techniques resulting from mutual influence: the former artistic director and remaining house choreographer of the Batsheva Dance Company, Ohad Naharin, developed this training method, which was later termed Gaga, based on knowledge he obtained from movement games with his mother (a Feldenkrais teacher), his dancing under choreographer Martha Graham, and his training in the Graham technique, his education in ballet and the Limón dance technique, but also his practice of t’ai chi and Pilates (Friedes Galili, 2015, 362–364). Furthermore, several Gaga practitioners mention themselves being members of different neo-spiritual movement practice communities simultaneously. Yoga seems to be the most frequented in combination with Gaga: there is Tamar,1 the yoga teacher, or Uri, the compassionate yoga participant, who feels, “yoga gives me one thing and Gaga completes it” (Interview with Uri, December 2016). Idan practices conscious dance, Shira Butoh, Dana meditation

 For reasons of anonymization pseudonyms instead of real names are used throughout the chapter.

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and the Alexander technique, and Eli is a Feldenkrais practitioner. Often it seems to come to a point where these different movement practices compete for one’s leisure time, and often Gaga seems to come out as the winner: “I’ve become so, ah, involved with this practice [Gaga] that I reduced my yoga practice” (Interview with Uri, December 2016). A Gaga class for non-professional dancers typically is 1 h long; ongoing movement is demanded, and participants are told to always be attentive to what is happening within their bodies and their environment at the same time. One teacher stands in the middle, surrounded by 15 or even a 100 people, constantly uttering instructions. Rather than following specific movement sequences, participants are expected to incorporate form-free instructions and movement given by a Gaga teacher, while constantly moving without “stopping to watch.” A Gaga class comes with a variety of other rules—part of them formed by so-called “work instructions”—which are communicated to participants orally or by writing before their first class: no talking—questions can be asked after class, no leaving the room, and no coming late. The space characteristically does not include mirrors. Furthermore, a strict regulation is in place—overseen by Gaga Movement Ltd.—regarding who is allowed to teach Gaga. This organization also guarantees a ritual of similar aesthetic effect independent from the geographic place where it is held. Not only is the ritual homogenous across national boundaries, so, it seems, is the group of Gaga participants it attracts: a culturally homogenous “global middle class” that shares cultural and social living conditions shaped by a neoliberal system and new technologies creating “mobile, expressive and self-oriented demeanour” (Dawson, 2013, 135). They work in tech industry as high-tech entrepreneur and software developer, as psychologist, social worker or body therapist, or in professions with a connection to arts—as poetic reading and writing coach, photographer, graphic designer, or “artist”.

2 The Supply Side: Do Gaga, Be Well! Via different media, the Gaga Movement Ltd. (the company responsible for the organization and management of Gaga) and all Gaga teachers communicate a discourse, which depicts Gaga as a practice causing an embodied transformation from an inferior to a better state. The discourse is spread via the official website (https:// www.gagapeople.com/en/) and the instructions given by the Gaga teacher. Each of these media communicates specific ethics of well-being. On the website, Gaga is introduced as a practice producing a particular kind of well-being: a “workout that develops flexibility, stamina, agility, coordination, and efficiency of movement,” “strengthening and invigorating the body” (Gaga Movement Ltd., 2019a). The focus on the “fundamentally physical” Gaga lies on a physical transformation (Gaga Movement Ltd., 2019b), and this means becoming more flexible and agile, possessing more stamina, being able to better coordinate the movements, and using movement in an energy-efficient way. The ideal Gaga body

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as output of practice is a “strong” and “healthy” body. It is the body of “body builders with a soft spine” (Naharin on Gaga Movement Ltd., 2017b), which moves instinctively and in an animal way (Gaga Movement Ltd., 2017c). The body, and, thus, its state of well-being, remain a work in progress; it is a body always concerned with fighting limits: “numb areas” and “physical fixations” (Gaga Movement Ltd., 2017c). There is a clear understanding of suboptimal movement habits, which have to be changed: “We change our movement habits by finding new ones” (Naharin on Gaga Movement Ltd., 2017c). The body is said to possess an “endlessness of possibilities” to move, which must be discovered and used (Naharin on Gaga Movement Ltd., 2017b, c). A Gaga class is the embodiment of self-­betterment, and a Gaga body is, consequently, a “better” body, which is the goal to be reached: “Do not return to the state your body was in before we started” (Gaga Movement Ltd., 2017a). Effort is positive, and “we learn to love our sweat”; the “burning sensation in our muscles” is interpreted as pleasure (Naharin on Gaga Movement Ltd., 2017b, c). At the same time, the aim is to “wake up” bodies by enabling people to “connect” to them through “deep listening,” “awareness,” and the “experience of physical sensations” (Gaga Movement Ltd., 2019a). Awareness is understood as the key to perceive one’s “physical weaknesses” and eliminate them (Gaga Movement Ltd., 2017b, c). Following class is said to increase awareness: “The instructions are deployed to increase awareness of and further amplify sensation” (Gaga Movement Ltd., 2017b). In conclusion, the well-being aimed for is bodily fitness but also bodily control. Achieving well-being is bound to achieving a certain ideal body image, which includes bodily fitness and control as the ability to maintain constant encompassing sensory awareness towards all incoming information: the body is always “ready to snap.” It is “calm and alert at once” (Naharin on Gaga Movement Ltd., 2017c) and “available” (Naharin on Gaga Movement Ltd., 2017b) to react. Additionally, Gaga claims to offer “emotional” well-being: Gaga is said to “generate […] happiness and flow and increases the ability to cope with challenges [occurring outside Gaga class]” (Gaga Movement Ltd., 2019a). It is said to create “pleasure” and enable participants to “enjoy the pleasure of movement in a welcoming, accepting atmosphere” (Gaga Movement Ltd., 2019b) and “to connect to […] powerful emotions, and movement […] in life” (Gaga Movement Ltd., 2019a). Gaga promises “an experience of freedom and pleasure in a simple way” (Gaga Movement Ltd., 2017c) and the individual discovery of the “passion to move” (Naharin on Gaga Movement Ltd., 2017b), while allowing silliness as a state of well-being—“we are measuring and playing with the texture of our flesh and skin, we might be silly, we can laugh at ourselves” (Naharin on Gaga Movement Ltd., 2017b). Similar ideas are repeated in the movement instructions given by the teachers, which draw an ideal body image as the goal of practice: This Gaga body is always “sensing” and “feeling” sensations. It is a “floating” body and participants are steadily reminded to float. Floating, the so-called “default mode” (stand-by mode) of the body, provokes an always active and controlled body, not “dropped into gravity.” Connected to this, the Gaga body is a body that is always “available” and “alert,” “ready to snap” and to react. By listening to its senses with open “seeing”

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and never just “staring” eyes, the Gaga body never sleeps, shuts down, or drifts away and becomes unaware of what it is doing. The Gaga body is flexible in terms of movement quality; it can “wear” different images or embody them. The body can become “spaghetti in boiling water”; it can be a body “standing in a cold shower” or “moving through” different textures, such as “honey,” “Nutella,” or “clay”; it can become “covered in (sticking) feathers”; it can also become a “creature,” an “animal,” and move alike. The Gaga body is free of “habits”; it is constantly researching, trying to break patterns, and not repeating them. The ongoing research consists of “doing, listening, and understanding” at the same time. The Gaga body is a body with “ideal posture,” moving in a “healthy way”—measuring “healthy” by standards of popular and scientific medial discourse. The Gaga body is a joyful body. It is enjoying itself. It “smiles,” “grooves,” “is silly,” “enjoys the good taste in the mouth,” “feels like it could go on forever,” and, most important, “always finds pleasure within effort.” A state of bodily well-being as the goal of practice is bound to this body image: well-being means having a sensible, always activated, and aware body, which is flexible and free and, most important, base for the creation of positive emotions.

3 The Demand Side: Gaga’s Well-Being Techniques and Experiences By applying specific body techniques, Gaga induces a specific body knowledge. The embodied state evoked by Gaga is discussed as a state of well-being in psychology, medicine, and neuroscience on the one hand (e.g., Payne & Crane-Godreau, 2013; Wang et al., 2013; Schmalzl et al., 2015) and Gaga participants on the other. We now briefly describe specific techniques and their possible results to offer an outlook on how a well-being effect of Gaga practice on Gaga participants is produced. Techniques used in Gaga class are introduced by the movement instructions and the Gaga teacher’s own constant movement accompanying them. Gaga’s ethics of well-being relates well-being to physical strength, mobility, and health in terms of posture, energy efficiency, encompassing sensory awareness, and emotional lightness and happiness. Gaga’s techniques are designed to translate the ethics into an embodied status via instructions, which invite participants to follow the movement. (1) The instructed movement generates stamina and strength through variations of speed and postures requiring muscular involvement and the regulation of strength and muscular tension—all while constantly moving. (2) Mobility is created through multidimensional movement and stretch, in addition to (3) movement and imagery asking for the embodiment of an ideal, naturally erect posture. (4) Instructions demand the enactment of “a state of completely balanced tone, ‘eutonis’ […], in which every muscle is doing exactly what it should. This state is experienced as light, free, open, and effortless; but at the same time stable, powerful, and

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well-rooted” (Payne & Crane-Godreau, 2013, 4). This state is often introduced by “float” or “float [a body part].” Participants report experiences of lightness and softness in their bodies, and it seems that less muscular effort is required to perform specific movements. (5) The given instructions also train awareness by asking for “focused attention” on specific input—body areas in particular—as well as “open monitoring” of the whole bodily state, for example (Schmalzl et al., 2015, 8–9), and (6) they are designed to enhance the perception of internal movement by using either self-touch or the controlled contraction of muscles traveling the body parts sequentially or by feeling the “highways of energy”—imagined as diagonal (from the left foot to the right hand, and vice versa) and vertical (from the left foot to the left hand) lines in the body. (7) Participants are sometimes requested to stop moving (or only float) and “feel the echo” of a movement action. (8) Participants are also asked to “multi-task”: Gaga’s work instructions demand a “layering of information,” encouraging participants to keep performing (and sensing) former movement while enacting new instructions and reminding them that a hierarchy of sense and sensory information should not exist. Furthermore, techniques of Gaga practice exist that are not a planned part of Gaga class, yet occur due to the practice’s aesthetic characteristics. Gaga practice appears to produce moments of (a) “runner’s high” and (b) “flow.” (a) Exhaustive physical training can potentially lead to the so-called “runner’s high”—“a euphoric state resulting from long-distance running” (Boecker et  al., 2008, 2523). Gaga seems to create apt requirements: “I was dripping wet at the end of that hour and I was overjoyed, I haven’t perspired; I haven’t sweat like that in a very long time, certainly not in public, okay?,” said Ester (Interview, January 2017). (b) There are moments in class during which participants are asked to dance in their own way, moving freely and “wasting energy.” Flow describes an experience where people lose part of their sense of self—they feel as though they are part of the environment, and time and timing no longer matter to them—while they are believed to remain in control of their movement (Csikszentmihalyi, 2014, 137, 141). Flow occurs in a setting in which individuals encounter challenges that they must deal with and goals they can possibly accomplish. The initial “subjective state” that the flow-perceiving individual must be in should include “[i]ntense and focused concentration on what one is doing in the present moment.” If attention can be kept on a stimulus, then he or she can reach a state of flow (Csikszentmihalyi, 2014, 242). During Gaga practice, flow thus seems related to the simultaneous integration of different active tasks that participants are led to focus on, as well as the integration of different sensory input compared with an ongoing active attention on and awareness of that input. A last set of well-being effect-related aesthetics is formed by non-planned “non-­ techniques” (by Naharin or Gaga Movement Ltd.) such as the aesthetic effect of practicing in a geographical space associated with artistically admired dancers from the Batsheva Dance Company or even being taught by active or former professional dancers.

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The data suggests that well-being is central to the practicing subjects. Participants cite the embodied effect they experienced, interpreted as positive, and an increase in the feeling of being well as their reason to practice: [I]t’s like much better than taking drugs, it’s much better than drinking […] just take a Gaga class [laughs] to have this feeling of a psychedelic joy and energy and fun. (Interview with Tamar, October 2017)

They speal of “‘wow’ moments,” momentary experiences of increased emotional-­ habitual well-being.2 According to the data, these moments can further be grouped into the following sub-categories: a feeling of transcendence, freedom, a physical– psychological release, after-class euphoria, positive sensations caused by the imagery, social bounds of positive emotional impact, and self-identification as a dancer. Besides, participants mention an increase in overall physical and psychological well-being as a result of ongoing practice, in the sense of feeling fitter and healthier and being able to cope with everyday problems. In addition, the transformation of the body with practice is valued positively as enactment of additional knowledge and abilities and the body of a dancer. Finally, participants ascribe a therapeutic effect to Gaga. They speak of overcoming physical restrictions, such as “pain” and “suffering,” with the help of Gaga. They also describe the transforming effect that Gaga has on negative emotions, which they imagine as being held in their bodies. Other participants state that practicing Gaga comes with an increase in self-­ acceptance and a decrease in self-criticism. Gaga seems to be able to help when other therapeutic interventions cannot.

4 Discussion of Case Study: Intended and Unintended Establishment of the Ethics of Well-Being The discourse about Gaga provided by the Gaga Movement Ltd. and the movement instructions originate with Naharin’s establishment of the ethics of well-being. Different media communicate to the interested website reader, the possible future participant, the participant to be, or the actual participating participant that well-­ being can be reached by practicing Gaga and that this well-being includes physical strength, stamina, flexibility, and the possibility to leave behind old movement patterns, which decrease movement range, cause pain, or are inefficient. Well-being means being able to use one’s body in healthy, efficient, but also pleasurable ways. The “expectation/demand” to experience pleasure is connected to socially and culturally shaped “optimism ethics,” “ethics [which] necessitate optimism”

 According to Aschenbrenner (forthcoming), the “wow” of wow-moments is, on the one hand, endemic, stemming from the experience of participant’s themselves—“wow, you know, it’s amazing” (Interview with Tamar, October 2017). On the other hand, it is a term that occurs in religiousstudies scholars’ discourses on religious and spiritual phenomena discussed as “awe” (see Meyer, 2015). 2

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(Ruah-­Midbar Shapiro, 2018, 128–129). The state of well-being is linked to the image of a holistically sensory-aware body, which provides the participant with full bodily self-control, yet it is also connected to a certain ideal image regarding posture or movement range. As the examples illustrate, by producing these effects, practicing Gaga seems to meet not only the neoliberal subject’s well-being demands via an instant and prolonged therapeutic effect, but also the typical demands of neoliberal consumers— “hedonism, happiness, personal satisfaction, choice, sovereignty, individuality, reflexivity or autonomy” (Gauthier & Martikainen, 2013, 3). Furthermore, practicing Gaga offers the ability to artistically express and biographically identify as a dancer, an artist, or a dance and art lover, thereby enabling “self-presentation and the promotion of the self” (Gauthier & Martikainen, 2013, 3) as an aestheticized and aesthetically educated subject. On the one hand, it is important to remember that the roots of the technical and well-being effect of Gaga (Feldenkrais, Graham, Pilates, and t’ai chi, for example) are originally found outside a “neoliberal age’s” social and cultural setting. While techniques have not changed much over time, social and cultural context has indeed. The experienced well-being effect of Gaga seems strongly related to the preconditions of a neoliberal subject, who enters class to fulfill specific demands. Gaga appears not to be a neo-spiritual practice per se, but it is used and practiced by an audience that occasionally exchanges it with other neo-spiritual practices of similar effect. On the other hand, the nature of well-being in neo-spiritual practices requires further investigation to answer the following questions: Is well-being a substitute for bliss, “chosenness,” awakening, or the like? Is it an ideal, a goal, or an experience? Can well-being be controlled or induced, or must it be passively received, similarly to a present or grace? We should refrain from comparing well-being to “religious” ideals, goals, and experiences; instead, we should put all effort into situating well-being at the interface of dispositifs, as well-being itself is strongly interrelated and relational. Gaga practice gathers pace beyond classic dance education within a holistic social milieu and takes up new meaning for non-professional dancers within. Such leisure-time activities as Gaga are about individual (emotional and physical) welfare, longevity, therapeutic effects, and personal development towards, in the case of Gaga, a “Gaga dancer” ideal.

5 Conclusion: The Multi-relational Well-Being Dispositif Returning to the previously mentioned triangle of well-being cultures, neoliberal practices, and new spiritualities, we can now conclude that neo-spiritual practices are indeed related to several further dispositifs and can only be analyzed in this configuration. Moreover, we believe that it is not neoliberalism (alone or foremost) that forms current spiritualities, but rather interacting systems in a nonlinear dynamic of communication with ever more dense interrelations—an idea inherited

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from (post)structuralism. We elaborated this argument with the triangle of dispositifs and further fields of practice in recent history that permeate most late-modern societies and reach out to a global level of trends and movements. This cultural and theoretical explanation, employing interacting dispositifs, is also an important claim countering a strong cognitive study of religion (CSR) in a field in which embodied practices of present religion are much in focus, and CSR permeates the discussion (still or again) with universal and evolutionary reasoning. From the field material of the Gaga ethnography we could derive a particular semantic repertoire to describe the interrelatedness of the named three dispositifs with therapy culture, fitness, and health preservation; self-responsible self-­ enhancement; and aesthetization of lifestyle; including a secular “wow.” They change through repetition, as well as absorbing new knowledge sets, technologies, and practices. We have to imagine Gaga practice as a configuration in transition. We hold that there is the prospect of clarifying the theoretical place of new spiritualities within the triangle. Gaga, the neo-spiritual formation, partly overlaps with neoliberalism: it is privileged actors that are wealthy enough to invest in Gaga classes and that have enough leisure time to do so. The Gaga subjects undergo high regulation—if not over-regulation—of bodily movement and behavior that is understood as permanent “work.” Thereby, it resembles the neoliberal adaptation of subjects to work life exigencies with a high degree of personal resilience, self-organization, and self-administration, intensified with digitalized citizenship. The benefit from the practice is an intensified feeling of oneself and of healing in the sense expounded above. This is accordant with the promise of wholeness in the well-being dispositif and of perfection when self-enhancement is brought to the fore. In distinction from neoliberal subjectivity, self-transcendent experiences, such as flow, awe, peak-experiences, and mystical experiences summarizable under “wow,” are positively connected to increased well-being and, mostly, also pro-social behavior (Chirico & Yaden, 2018, 225). One can probably conclude that Gaga practice enhances well-being through eliciting positive experiences of flow and an intense feeling of being present with one’s body. The manner of well-being that is fostered through this involves feelings of connectedness with a meaningful world and a social community. At the same time, clinging tightly on to positive experiences is hedonistic. Some questions still remain to be answered. What kind of emotionality is linked with well-being cultures? Can it be said to be a “male” or “female” emotional culture (Illouz, 2007, 15, 24–30)? Or is it unisexual with relaxation, contentment, and aesthetic satiation being without clear-cut gendered categories? This might hint at well-being being a deflated moral regime, effecting an equilibrated quieting. From the perspective of Georg Simmel’s writings about overexcited metropolitan individuals, the well-being dispositif appears to be like the civil utopia come true. This unisex neo-spirituality is an indication of the egalitarianism that neoliberal subjects widely bought into over the last decades. Postmodern neo-spirituality is less an enlightened but rather an aesthetic project for subjects.

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6 Outlook: Does Well-Being Culture Teeter on the Brink? The following ideas and observations have not been going unobserved. It’s the intensity that accumulates. In theories of postmodernity from the 1990s, these trends have already been singled out, such as by Ulrich Beck, Jürgen Habermas, Anthony Giddens, and Zygmunt Bauman. For instance, “Bauman’s focus and sympathies are with risks and the incalculable. We live, countless commentators have observed, in a sort of ‘age of the virus.’ […] In this important sense what Bauman has consecrated is a sort of sociology of the virus” (Lash, 1993, 14–15). The dispositif of well-being has long been salient on a global level and is becoming ever more complex, risky, and even more uncontrollable against the backdrop of the global climate crisis—palpable in ecological protest. Through a global awareness of this crisis, collectivist orientation comes to the fore, promoted by digital media, scientific research, protest in public space, and political initiatives (Gauthier, 2020, 285). The frantic search for an alternative energy supply and provisions against the increase of heavy-weather incidents needs a joint effort. Well-being in its strong health orientation cannot be solved on a purely individual level anymore, facing fine dust in the air affecting the air we breathe, chemicals emitting from drink bottles, and a pandemic spreading while we write this conclusion in lockdown. Moreover, intensified migration challenges neoliberal societies composed of “strong,” self-­ responsible, independent, self-caring individuals with persons reliant upon support (the “weakest/least” of religious traditions). It is within these contexts that we can localize occurrences in order to correct neoliberal and capitalist excesses when vulnerability becomes so overtly blatant. It is not so much a solidarity from shared exploitation of a working class but from egalitarian, vulnerable employees engaged in neo-spiritual self-care. In this sense new ethical conceptions of well-being might converge with religious conceptions of ethical care for others. At the same time, the ethics of the current well-being dispositif typically lacks a response to human suffering. Suffering is absent in the semantics of well-being that overcharges the human condition with awareness to the here and now, with “detaching” from emotions or at least with intensifying only positive emotions, with the workload of health prevention, organizing of healthy nutrition, and over-­legitimizing self-empowerment and self-betterment. Suffering is the “unspoken” or “unpronounced” within the discourse of neoliberal well-being. As such, it cannot be convincing in a moral sense. Suffering is not solved, accompanied, or sustained but suppressed through a bundle of distracting activities. An attention to the suffering of others is a blind spot or minimal, equally towards people and nature. Well-being practices will not disappear, same as individualism and subjective cultures cannot be rolled back, but rather they keep changing in directions adumbrated here and in those that are unforeseeable. Maybe a practice such as Gaga is already reacting to the situation described above: in March 2019, Gaga class was freed from some of its strict ritual rules by being offered online via Zoom for participants worldwide—donation-based (so people in precarious economic situations would not need to pay), but while also

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suggesting the right amount of money to pay for class, appealing to a social sense. Additionally, Gaga participants were found to practice Gaga because it enabled them to experience an extraordinary space, where they could find physical and psychological relief through techniques, but also mainly because of the specific constellations of space and people in that space—in class they can be vulnerable, they can cry. Moreover, at least theoretically, attention is drawn to individual preconditions, and participants are encouraged to respect their physical limitations—but still: “Only good pain is allowed!”

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Lina Aschenbrenner received her master‘s degree in the Study of Religion and Culture at Ludwig-Maximilian‘s University Munich and earned her PhD in Religious Studies at ParisLodron-University Salzburg in 2020 with her research project “The Gaga Effect – A Body-Focused Ethnography on the Aesthetics and Body Knowledge of a Neo-Spiritual Israeli Movement Practice”. Her main research interests are aesthetics of religion, the construction of religious space, and the contemporary religious landscape and its practices, focusing on neo-spirituality in particular. She presented the results of her research at several international conferences. Her avocation is her work as dance teacher, teaching contemporary dance and ballet. She finds, that the knowledge gained during her dance career enriches her research.  

Anne Koch is professor in Study of Religion, Faculty of Theology, Ludwig University of Freiburg, Germany. Her main areas of research are economics of religion and aesthetics of religion/embodied cognition. Her main focus is on contemporary religion in Europe – informal, formal and secularist – and on cosmopolitan spirituality. She has conducted a number of fieldwork projects on healing in diverse traditions and studied global urban yoga for two years in Tokio/Japan, Thailand and Germany. She is co-editor of the Journal of Religion in Europe and board member of several book series and journals. Recent publication: (with K. Wilkens) (eds.) The Bloomsbury Handbook of The Cultural and Cognitive Aesthetics of Religion.  

Correction to: New Spiritualities and the Cultures of Well-being Géraldine Mossière

 orrection to: C G. Mossière (ed.), New Spiritualities and the Cultures of Well-being, Religion, Spirituality and Health: A Social Scientific Approach 6, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-­3-­031-­06263-­6 The book was inadvertently published with a typo error in the title that read “Spiritualties” whereas it should be “Spiritualities”. The word has been updated in the book.

The updated version of the book can be found at https://doi.org/10.1007/978-­3-­031-­06263-­6

© The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2022 G. Mossière (ed.), New Spiritualities and the Cultures of Well-being, Religion, Spirituality and Health: A Social Scientific Approach 6, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-06263-6_12

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