Are We All Spiritual?

• Main Author: Hornborg, Anne-Christine
• Format: Article in Journal/Newspaper
• Language: English
• Published: Equinox Publishing 2011
• Subjects: History of Religions; Canadian Mi’kmaq; global vs. local contexts; Spirituality; inner potential; Sweden; Mi’kmaq
• Online Access: https://lup.lub.lu.se/record/2518771

'I’m spiritual – not religious' has become a key expression of a new form of globalized religion focussing on a specific notion of spirituality, signifying a universal human essence, located deep inside each individual as a potential for wellbeing and personal transformation. The message is: Spirituality unites us into a single humanity, while religion, with its dogma and rituals, separates us. This new concept of spirituality works mostly in symbiosis with neoliberal ideas about the market, where neo-spiritual therapists and coaches offer to assist individuals in finding and developing their spirituality or 'inner potential'. In this article, I suggest that this contemporary view of spirituality is produced within a particular social context, and is thus not self-evidently adopted in other contexts. To illustrate this, I draw on my experience of fieldwork in Canadian Mi’kmaq reserves and examples of contemporary spirituality, mainly from Sweden; and consider whether Mi'kmaq notions of spirituality are congruent with those of the 'new spirituality'.