Spirituality and social engagement

Abstract

In this article, I look at how spirituality can be a wellspring of social engagement and activism, based mainly on my research in Quebec, Canada. Less organizational spiritualities are often dismissed as individualistic, narcissistic, and unconcerned with collective well-being. Along with is a growing mass of evidence contributed by other scholars shows that this is often not the case. Using mainly examples from Quebec where my research is situated, I show that spiritual practice is often social; even embodied newer spiritualities typically involve the presence of others; their authenticity is often gauged not only in terms of intrapersonal, embodied experience but also over the longer term, by transformations in close relationships. Spirituality is often mobilized for progressive social ends but not always. I explore some of the ways that spirituality can nourish social engagement and raise the question of how social activism can bolster spirituality, becoming effectively a form of spiritual practice.

Introduction

Contemporary spiritualities have often been stereotyped as narcissistic and individualistic. The individualization of religious life along with the growth of the ‘religious nones’ category, especially among younger age cohorts, has led many to question whether there is a future for socially engaged religion. Here I look at the social dimensions of spirituality and how spirituality can become a wellspring for social engagement and political activism.

Much of my analysis is based on research carried out in Quebec, Canada. Quebec would seem to offer a textbook case for the decline of religion and its replacement by privatized spirituality. However, I suggest that the situation is far more complex there as elsewhere. Following other scholars such as Ammerman, I see spirituality and religion as interrelated in different ways according to social and cultural context and discuss how the articulation between two presents itself in Quebec. While some of the spiritualities present in Quebec mentioned are directly related to a religious organization and subject to its governance, a plethora of less organizational currents, often glossed as ‘New Age’ or ‘holistic’, also mark religious landscape in the province. Circulation among various spiritualities and religious traditions is common, resulting in a proliferation of individualized, hybrid spiritualities; these have been dismissed as individualistic, narcissistic, and unconcerned with social issues. However, there is a growing mass of evidence to show that while spirituality is individualized, it is also social and that it can be mobilized for social ends. I explore how spirituality, be it attached to a religious tradition or not, can nourish and inspire social engagement. At the same time, I argue that social activism can give embodied form to spirituality, becoming effectively a mode of spiritual practice. First, a word about the research that underpins the reflections I present here.

Research and methodological approach

My analysis draws from several different research experiences in Quebec, including over two decades of fieldwork in a Spiritualist church in Montreal focused on participants’ religious experience and on the role of spirituality in their lives. I directed a team study ¹ on contemporary religions and spiritualities in Quebec (Meintel, 2022) that was carried out over a decade in Montreal and the surrounding area as well as in the regions around smaller cities across the province (Sherbrooke, Saint-Jérôme, Rawdon, Saguenay). These research experiences shed light on spirituality, its connections with religion, and on how spirituality can affect social relationships and civic participation. Unless otherwise specified, examples given come from these projects, including publications by coresearchers and assistants involved in the team project.

Both studies have been influenced by phenomenological and experiential approaches in anthropology and sociology – for example, McGuire (2008), Csordas (1997), Goulet (1998), and Turner (1992), among others. In the team study, we sought to counterbalance the subjectivism of our approach by applying the same research tools (interview formats, observation grids) developed by myself and Géraldine Mossière to all the groups studied. Field notes and reports were read and commented on by several researchers.

The team research sought to document the religious diversity that has developed in Quebec since 1960s, a time of rapid secularization, and to explore the meaning of religion and spirituality in the everyday lives of participants in the groups studied. The 232 groups studied by a team supported by a total of 70 assistants over the years represent (1) religions established in Quebec since the 1960s such as Bahá’í, various Evangelical churches, nature-centred currents such as Indigenous-inspired shamanism, Druidism and Wicca, Spiritualism, Santo Daime; (2) new currents in long-established denominations (e.g. Jewish Reconstructionism; the Catholic Charismatic Renewal); (3) imported religions, be this by immigrants (including Islam, Hinduism, certain forms of Buddhism) or by the native – born (e.g. Eckankar); (4) long-established religions where the congregation includes a substantial proportion of immigrants among their members (e.g. Chinese Presbyterians).

The Quebec context

During the 1960s, a period known as the Quiet Revolution, the State took over the social welfare, educational, and health systems that had long been the fief of the Catholic Church. Religious practice of the Catholic faithful had been declining for some time; in 1948, only 30–50% of Catholic Montrealers were going to Sunday Mass (Linteau et al., 1992: 336). Since the 1960s, religious attendance has continued to diminish, and far more than in the rest of Canada; at the same time, the ranks of the religiously unaffiliated (religious ‘nones’) have increased steadily (Nault and Meunier, 2017; Wilkins-Laflamme, 2017).

From the 1960s on, migrants have arrived in Quebec from an ever-widening range of source countries, even as the native-born have become more and more mobile; both these factors have greatly diversified the religious landscape. Some from the Francophone social majority have converted to Islam, to Evangelical Protestant forms of Christianity, and a few identify as Buddhist. Many more born-Catholics have been drawn to more marginal spiritual currents, including various yogic spiritualities, Druidism, Amerindian-Inspired shamanism, Wicca and Spiritualism, without changing their religious identity. These lesser-known religions (or what many of those who practice them call ‘spiritualities’) generally do not require conversion in the sense of a formal change of religious belonging, such that participants often retain Catholic identity and certain elements of Catholic practice and belief. By way of example, those who attend the Spiritualist church I study generally do not see Spiritualism as a denominational identity, but rather as a set of spiritual resources. Indeed, in terms of ‘religion’, most still see themselves as Catholic even if not practicing.

Much religiosity in Quebec is invisible, not only physically but also socially. ² Many places of worship are situated in private homes (e.g. Muslim, Catholic, and Evangelical prayer groups) or rented spaces (typical of Evangelical and Spiritualist congregations) and are not marked as such; nature-centred groups usually hold their rituals in green spaces away from the public eye. At the same time, speaking of one’s religious beliefs and practices is generally socially taboo in Quebec society, whereas spirituality finds somewhat more acceptance and ‘mindfulness’ meditation has become mainstream ³ (Mossière, 2020). Mass media and public discourse regularly recycle notions of religion as opposed to science that are repeated in public institutional settings such as colleges, universities, and hospitals and community health clinics. Hospital patients are sometimes afraid to manifest their religiosity and to ask for spiritual care, while students sometimes report that religion is denigrated by teachers as well as their peers. In many respects, one is reminded of the atmosphere described in Boucher and Kucinskas’ (2016) description of an elite college milieu in the United States where being a critical thinker is assumed to exclude religiosity, and religion is frequently stigmatized, such that students tend to keep their religious and spiritual expressions hidden and private.

Religion and spirituality

Nancy Ammerman has long argued that religion and spirituality are not nearly as separate as binary distinctions between the two would have it; rather, the boundary between the two is highly porous (Ammerman, 2013). In her view, it is ‘the spiritual dimension of a practice that makes it distinctively religious’ (Ammerman, 2021a: 8). Their entanglement, she argues, takes different forms one cultural context to another; to imagine them as completely separate is largely a reflection of the social reality of certain classes in Western society (see also Steensland et al., 2022). We should note at the same time that not all spiritualities in the world arise from religion in the Western sense of the term (see Sun, 2022 as regards China). Both terms refer to a reality, values, and meanings beyond ourselves that connect us to others and the cosmos; I see spirituality as the more subjective, personal, and individualized version of this, whatever its relation (or absence thereof) to religion.

Quebec would seem to epitomize the gradual replacement of religion by spirituality under the impact of secularization as some have read contemporary developments in other Western societies (Heelas and Woodhead, 2005). However, things are not so simple; for one thing, emic definitions of spirituality are highly variable. Many of our research participants see religion as the dogma and hierarchy of Catholicism while others see religion as Catholicism and everything else as ‘spirituality’. We came across Evangelicals who see their Evangelical Christianity as spirituality, not religion. Despite the pervasive rhetoric of ‘spiritual-but-not-religious’ in Quebec, one finds many ways in which the two overlap.

Self-identifying Quebecois Catholics who say they are ‘not religious’, implying that they do not attend Mass regularly, often describe themselves ‘spiritual’. However, Catholic practice can take other forms; one young adult Catholic found that conventional Catholic religiosity (regular Mass attendance in a parish or community) proved detrimental to her spirituality; now her spiritual practice includes ‘connecting with inspiring people, reading certain articles, meditating and praying alone or in a very small group, once in a while going to Mass anonymously’ (Collin, 2022: 72). Moreover, Catholic elements constantly seep into contexts that our research participants consider to be spiritual and not religious: shamanic visions of the Virgin Mary, a Spiritualist medium perceiving Padre Pio in someone’s aura.

A Pew study of 2017 ⁴ finds that 48% of Americans consider themselves spiritual and religious, a category that several other researchers have found to be particularly engaged (Kucinskas and Stewart, 2022: 22). In Quebec, there are many smaller Catholic spiritual communities with their own devotional practices, community life, and social outreach that originated in the post-Vatican II era, such as the Famille Marie-Jeunesse, le Chemin neuf, and the Légion de Marie. A monastery church in the heart of Montreal, the Sanctuaire du Saint-Sacrément, run by the Fraternité de Jérusalem (a Catholic order of male and female monks), is filled even on weekdays with those who appreciate its distinctive liturgy and who participate its various spiritual groups. Saint Joseph’s Oratory (l’Oratoire Saint-Joseph) in Montreal receives millions of visitors every year, of whom 30% are not Catholic. ⁵ The Oratory is the focus of numerous spiritual practices by Catholics and others: lighting candles, kissing the tomb of Saint André Bessette, Brother André as he is known in Montreal, anointing oneself or others with drops of the oil burned in front of St Joseph’s statue, writing petitions to Saint-Joseph or Brother André or sending them in online.

Steensland et al. (2022) have noted the dangers of drawing too sharp a contrast between religion as social and communal and spirituality as interior, a property of individuals, and developed outside of social relationships. In the same volume, Ammerman (2021b) argues that in fact, the ways that religion, its organizations, beliefs, and practices, is articulated with spirituality varies greatly by cultural context, a thesis borne by Swidler (2022) as regards Malawi. There, religiosity tends to muffle spirituality, though it remains a vital resource that brings comfort and inner strength for believers in times of need. Rather than taking monotheistic religion as the template (with spirituality being whatever is left over), Anita Sun (2022) emphasizes the relationality between the two and encourages us to see Western notions of ‘religion’ with their emphasis on belief, affiliation, and (exclusive) identity, as the more particular case in a world where spirituality is far more generalized. In China, religious affiliation and religious attendance are the case of a minority, but spiritual practice, drawing on various traditions permeates daily life.

As Steensland et al. (2022) point out, classic, polarized notions of religion and spirituality (in Western social science) have reinforced the notion, going back to Robert Bellah et al. (1985), of contemporary spirituality as by definition individualistic and disconnected from larger concerns. By the same token, the social dimensions of spiritual practice have been obscured, and along with it the relevance of religious collectivities, the impact of spirituality on social relationships, and the possibility of spiritual activism. These are the questions to which we now turn.

Social dimensions of spiritual experience

In Quebec, like other societies where religious affiliation and attendance have declined markedly and where spirituality is presumed by many to be individual and private, it would be easy to underestimate the collective dimension of spirituality. Yet, as I have argued elsewhere (Meintel, 2014), many aspects of spirituality require the participation of others; for example, apprenticeship in a new spiritual path usually cannot be accomplished on one’s own. Spiritualities, even those that are strongly anchored in personal experience, for example, Ashtanga yoga, are often practised collectively. Groups practicing spiritualities with little community elaboration (minimal hierarchy, few or no activities outside spiritual/religious ones, no provision for children’s activities or religious socialization) may yet offer frequent, if ephemeral, moments of communitas where participants experience communion, often silent, through their shared connection to a transcendent reality. This is certainly the case with small groups in the Spiritual Church of Healing (pseudonym for the Spiritualist church I study). These groups meet twice a month over 9 months of the year; participants meditate together and are led in exercises to develop their clairvoyant abilities by an experienced medium. Group members know little more than each other’s first names in most cases and yet often co-experience moments of wonderment; for example, when one participant ‘sees’ something for another person present that holds great emotional meaning for them.

Work by Johnston (2016, 2017) on Catholic and Integral Yoga groups shows how they provide support for sustaining practice and weathering setbacks. Collective spiritual practice usually entails embodied attentiveness to others; Michal Pagis’ work (2009, 2010, 2019) has been invaluable for showing how even in silence, the presence of others makes a difference for the quality of spiritual experience, as in the Vipassana groups she studies where participants do not interact verbally and minimize nonverbal interaction. Pagis (2013: 100) mentions one case where a more experienced meditator who was offered a private space for meditation chose to practice with the group. Interestingly, as she notes elsewhere, (Pagis, 2019: 59–61), small noises (coughing, shifting position), tend to happen in waves when a group is meditating together. I have observed this myself in hour-long meditations in a Siddha Yoga ashram in the United States with hundreds of participants; sometime after the half-hour mark, it was not uncommon for manic laughter to traverse the group.

Extraordinary experience that is part of certain spiritualities is often incorporated into rituals in group settings where certain individuals are designated with protecting the person who is in another state of consciousness, as is the case in Umbanda rituals as observed in a group in Montreal affiliated with a Brazilian Umbanda temple. Here a ritual assistant called a cambono looks after the safety of mediums in trance. Similarly, in Catholic Charismatic gatherings in Montreal, some individuals, usually men, assure the safety of those who fall to the floor in a trancelike state where they briefly ‘rest in the Spirit’ – a role that fell to the male assistant doing the fieldwork on certain occasions.

The supposition that spirituality outside the purview of religious organizations is necessarily individualistic requires considerable nuance. First of all, the individualization of religious life has led to considerable mobility between various traditions such that those who have rejected religious authority in one of these may well accept constraining norms and regulations in another. For example, those in our Quebec study who participate in ayahuasca rituals accept the numerous taboos and food and drink that must be followed beforehand.

It is also worth bearing in mind that less institutionalized spirituality is not only a matter of personal fulfilment, but also requires effort and reflexivity since the quality of their spiritual life becomes the individual’s responsibility; this fact has certain social ramifications. Neopagans, druids, and Wiccans, for example, devote great effort to creating effective, meaningful rituals, collective as well as individual ones. Small group discussions among Spiritualists that I have observed reveal that participants feel entirely responsible for the state of their inner life which, in their view, affects others. They find it important to discipline their thoughts (e.g. by avoiding negative thinking, praying for those who are making their lives difficult, etc.), for the good of themselves and those around them.

The itineraries of those undertaking spiritual explorations beyond their religion of primary socialization that we observed in the team research are most often motivated by a desire for healing, in the sense of improved well-being. Such searching is often precipitated by divorce or other common misfortunes of modern life (prolonged unemployment, chronic illness, past addictions, etc.). Spiritual healing generally involves rituals and practices that are carried out in group settings; this is the case for Evangelical, Catholic charismatic and Spiritualist groups, among others. Furthermore, such healing can also be associated with wider concerns, as exemplified by the Reclaiming Witchcraft movement and its rituals of healing for Mother Earth (Roberts, 2011).

Spirituality and social relationships

In widely different spiritual/religious currents, from Islam to Wicca, participants in the team study marvel at their own emotional, embodied experience – of healing, of extraordinary states, in group prayer and meditation – and initially, this becomes measure of spiritual authenticity. For example, a young Catholic Charismatic of Latin American background describes shedding tears and feeling her ‘inner emptiness’ fill up with something that left her feeling ‘clean’ and ‘light’ during prayer (Ruiz Henao, 2014: 119); spiritualist mediums experience clairvoyance through sensations of heat, impressions of smells or tastes. In the Spiritual Healing Church, those who perform ritual healing often feel prickling and heat in the hands; those receiving the laying on of hands report a rush of heat or coolness, waves of energy around the head or energy rising in the body. Such bodily sensations confirm the sense that something invisible but real is happening. Nonetheless, validating one’s sense of authenticity tends to be a social matter, particularly in more marginal groups where social validation is not necessarily presumed. The presence of others who have similar experiences, say of Spiritualist or Pentecostalist healing rituals, or for whom the same druidic ritual is meaningful helps to confirm the veracity of one’s inner experience.

Moreover, those who spend some years on a spiritual path tend to assess their spiritual growth and healing over the long term in terms of how their relationships with others have changed. I was initially surprised when I interviewed 15 Spiritualists about the landmarks along their spiritual journey. I was expecting that they would speak of their extraordinary experiences, since I knew that several of them had had visions of angels, of Satan or other unusual forms of spirit contact. All had regularly participated in a small group and attended church services for at least a few years. To my surprise, none of them spoke of extraordinary experience; rather they all spoke of transformed relationships; for example, reconciliation with a parent from whom they had been estranged, forgiving a past partner. Ashtanga practitioners mentioned that their ways of reacting to life events and situations had changed, along with their social relationships and that others had noticed these changes. Such changes appear to be the fruit of spiritual practice and are taken as substantial proof of spiritual healing and to the practitioner, attest to the authenticity of the spiritual path they have chosen.

Finally, I would note that many in the Spiritualist group are holistic health practitioners or work in the health system, most often in its lower echelons as home caregivers or as care attendants in residences for the elderly. In exchanges in the small groups, they often share about how their spiritual development has affected their work. Others are primary caregivers for a family member and find sustenance in their spirituality. In the team research as well, we noticed that many who had a regular spiritual practice in less mainstream spiritual currents (e.g. a Santo Daime group, an ashram in Montreal, yogic spiritualities) were employed in the health system (doctors, nurses, home caregivers); many others worked with the elderly and the destitute. They often mention feeling sustained and guided by their spirituality in their care for others.

Mobilizing spirituality for collective action

Most of the religious groups studied by our team encourage their members to be good citizens (voting, responsible environmental practices, tolerance of religious, and ethnic difference), good neighbours, and to participate in the wider society. They also promote volunteering, hold blood drives and hold open door days to receive visitors not of their faith. A few years ago, a Caodaist temple sent members to help the residents of a flood-stricken region near Montreal. We also find Christian churches and Catholic parishes, mosques, synagogues, and Hindu temples organizing activities for the benefit of the wider society: running food banks, offering after-school activities for neighbourhood children, offering tutorials for those who need it.

There are also many instances where interfaith efforts are mobilized for social causes. The reception of Syrian refugees in Quebec, both Christian and Muslim, was greatly facilitated by the involvement of Armenian Orthodox churches as well as by parishes and groups of lay Catholics and Catholic religious communities along with their friends and neighbours.

In Saint-Lambert (a city close to Montreal), the Œcumen-Refuge project, a collaboration Catholic parishes and Protestant churches was organized to receive some of the refugees. On l’Îsle-des-Soeurs, an island in the Saint Lawrence that is part of Montreal, the Collective for Unity emerged in 2015 out of a collaboration between a mosque, synagogue, and Catholic parish, collected clothing and supplies and received many contributions from local businesses and set up free French classes.

The effectiveness of interfaith efforts plays on the particular strength of religious sociability. Based on a common relationship with a larger reality and presumed shared values, religious sociability is usually seen in regard to particular groups. However, it can cross denominational lines as the basis of a broad consensus of values. A shared ethic allows participants to develop trusting relationships and is observed in open-ended interfaith solidarity groups such as Carrefour Foi et Spiritualité in Montreal. Originally Catholic, the group redefined itself in 2008 and opened up to people of other faiths and to non-believers in order to promote pluralistic harmony, social, and environmental engagement and personal development.

Initiatives launched by religious leaders and organizations for social objectives, especially those that cross-cut denominational boundaries, tend to welcome anyone willing to help, regardless of religious affiliation or absence thereof. We have found that interfaith initiatives are not the occasion of proselytizing but rather the occasion for find common spiritual ground.

What of spiritualities that are not based on religious affiliations? New spiritualities, sometimes referred to as ‘holistic spiritualities’ given their association with the quest for wellness and body-mind unity, have often been seen as private and characterized by narcissistic withdrawal into the self. Chandler (2008) and Steensland et al. (2022) cite a number of studies to this effect. Yet, they are increasingly showing up in the public sphere; for example, silent meditation flash mobs in Barcelona, London, and New York; yoga classes and group meditations in parks in Montreal. Moreover, these spiritualities are beginning to show potential for social change rooted in an ethic of responsibility and reciprocity, according to Catalan researchers Anna Clot-Garrell and Mar Griera (2019). The authors cite the example of volunteers teaching meditation and yoga in prisons in Barcelona with the aim to not only bring hope to prisoners but also to create a space of transformation within their incarceration.

We found a number of spiritual groups in Quebec that are also active for the cause of the environment; for example, a yoga school in Sherbrooke that raises funds to support regional environmentalist organizations. In Montreal, volunteers organized by La voie boréale/True North Insight, a Canadian Buddhist group, give mindfulness meditation classes in a federal prison near the city. The English-language website of the group ⁶ describes its outlook as ‘rooted in Early Buddhist teachings, with openness to other Buddhist traditions’. A kundalini yoga centre in Montreal regularly gave half the registration fees for seven sessions a week to a non-profit organization whose mission is to democratize yoga and meditation through community and public organizations.

Public meditations in Montreal and other Canadian Cities are sponsored by various yogic and Buddhist groups and are often presented as ‘mindfulness’. While some raise the question of whether mindfulness is a case of religion insinuating itself into the public sphere, others worry that it could turn into a watered-down, ethically impoverished recycling of Buddhism, often for profit (Wilks, 2014; see also Carrette and King, 2005). In the same vein, the political scientist James Rowe warns against the danger of the transformational potential of mindfulness practice being overtaken by a neoliberal discourse of self-help that reinforces egoistic behaviour and capitalist institutions. Rowe writes of Black Panther Angela Davis who began practicing yoga and meditation while in prison. Davis, he relates, is convinced that that mindfulness can become a revolutionary force on the condition that it be embedded in movements that offer ethical and political frameworks for challenging oppressive systems (Rowe, 2016). This brings us to the question of spiritual activism.

Spiritual activism

If spirituality is imagined as an individual, private affair, the notion of spiritual activism would seem to be an oxymoron. However, Kucinskas and Stewart (2022) argue that many who are concerned by contemporary political struggles (political progressives, persons of colour, members of the lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender (LGBT) community) are more likely to speak of spiritual practices rather than religious ones. The authors find that critiques of ‘selfish’ neoliberal spirituality are exaggerated and that ‘all of whom for different reasons may feel more alienated in conventional congregations, spirituality may serve as an alternative path to political engagement’ (Kucinskas and Stewart, 2022: 606).

There are in fact a growing number of spiritualities that offer support for activists by helping to avoid burnout and polarization and that encourage ‘prefigurative’ practices (Schaarsberg, 2023), that is, practices whereby a movement reflects the realities of the society it wants to create. They provide resources to give a spiritual dimension for various types of militancy and to affect the form it takes. In some cases, we can speak of spiritual activism in that taking action to promote social justice, end racism, and discrimination, and preserve the natural environment gives embodied form to spirituality and extends it into the world.

Inspired by the public meditations that were part of the daily life of the Occupy Wall Street movement, James Rowe founded a meditation group in Victoria for social activists. As he observes (Rowe, 2016), activities associated with Eastern spiritualities (yoga, meditation) have been resources for activism for some time; Martin Luther King, for example, was influenced by Gandhi and greatly admired the Vietnamese peace activist and Buddhist monk Thich Nhat Hanh. Rowe notes that what he calls the ‘transformative movement-building current’, where ‘techniques of the self’ such as meditation support progressive political action, seems to be gathering strength in recent years.

In Montreal, the network Rest to Resist/Résistance et pleine conscience was founded in 2018. Oriented to social change actors, along with artists, abuse survivors, and other allies, it works to support them to stay engaged in the long term; they also publicize upcoming protests on their Facebook page; for example, against Bill 21, ⁷ for solidarity with First Nations groups protesting (successfully) against a proposed gas pipeline that was likely to damage the soil and local species and to militate against the murder and disappearance of indigenous women. A US-based movement to end factory farming and the attendant cruelty to animals and environmental damage includes an article promoting meditation and yoga as supports to activism on its website. ⁸ The Institute for Sacred Activism, an international organization, offers virtual and in-person resources from a wide array of spiritual traditions to support militancy on various social issues such as racial injustice, destruction of the environment, animal welfare, and homelessness. Courses, workshops, and retreats seek to develop ‘compassion-in-action’ that melds ‘deep spiritual knowledge, courage, love, and passion with radical action in the world’. ⁹ For indigenous peoples seeking to protect sacred lands, water and rituals from appropriation and desecration (Liljeblad and Verschuuren, 2018), activism and spirituality are thoroughly intertwined.

Another example of prefigurative spiritual activism emerges from new research by Nicolas Boissière (2023) on six Druid groups in the Montreal area. (Two others were studied in our team research a few years earlier.) In contemporary Druidism, care for the environment as well as the community is highly valued. According to Boissière, an alliance has formed between Druids in Quebec and First Nations people in recent years; here Druids are careful to avoid cultural appropriation and to support indigenous people’s initiatives to save their sacred spaces and preserve the environment, while leaving roles of leadership to them. A guide to engagement ¹⁰ in these causes put out by the Tiohtià:ke/Montreal Network has been widely circulated in druidic and neopagan milieux; activism takes the form of rituals for the environment, personal contacts with indigenous persons, participating in protests and generally supporting First Nation initiatives.

When spirituality combines with activism, the lines between the two become blurred. Andrew Harvey, the founder of Sacred Activism, holds that ‘a spirituality that is only private and self-absorbed, one devoid of an authentic political and social consciousness, does little to halt the suicidal juggernaut of history’ (see Note 11). A Thai Buddhist feminist, Ouyporn Khuankaew (2020: 121) working in Thailand other Asian countries to help women heal from trauma and to fight misogyny, notably among Buddhist monks, sees the bodhisatva (one who has attained the enlightened Buddha state) as ‘also the one who is committed to end both personal and societal suffering’.

In her study of racialized youth of different ethnic and religious backgrounds in a disadvantaged Toronto neighbourhood, the political scientist Anuppiriya Sriskandarajah (2023) approaches citizenship as a kind of relational, lived practice. Some of the young people practice their religion while for others it is an identity marker. According to the author, it is their common spirituality that enables them to come together and to advocate for others. As she puts it, ‘Spirituality engendered a sense of belonging that was centred on community, connectivity, and creativity’ (Sriskandarajah, 2023: 139–140).

A caveat from the pandemic

Much spiritual activism is inspired by values of social justice including gender and racial equality and LGBT advocacy along with stewardship of the environment; however, not all spiritual activism is leftist or progressive. As Bramadat et al. (2021: 1) put it, ‘religious, spiritual, and social forces do not combine in the minds and habits of individuals and communities in predictable, straightforward ways’. The pandemic has generated many new spiritual resources such as online meditations and yoga classes, along with a number of spiritually motivated social justice initiatives (such as interfaith advocacy of vaccine equity ¹¹ ); yet at the same time, it has given rise to unexpected convergences between those who practice holistic spiritualities and right-wing populism. Many news reports commented on the presence of Evangelicals, Baptists and fundamentalist Catholics as well as practitioners of holistic spiritualities among the convoys of truckers who occupied the downtown core of Ottawa, Canada for weeks in early 2022 (see LeBlanc and Gareau, 2023 for further details on this occupation including a description of an instance of cultural appropriation of an indigenous ritual). Other practitioners of non-mainstream spiritualities publicized the protests in enthusiastic terms and diffused conspiracy theories about the pandemic and the vaccines on Facebook.

This type of convergence between conspiracy and spirituality is widely known as ‘conspirituality’. First proposed by Ward and Voas (2011), the term refers to a political-spiritual philosophy based on two fundamental premises: that a secret group seeks to control the political and social order and that humanity is undergoing an awakening, a paradigm shift (Asprem and Dyrendal, 2015: 368) – a notion often heard in esoteric and neo-shamanic circles. Didier Fassin (2021) finds cognitive similarities between beliefs in witchcraft as he studied them in Senegal and theories that COVID-19 is the creation of Western powers, pharmaceutical companies, or the ‘deep State’. Our team found that widely different religious/spiritual currents include belief that evil spirits intervene in people’s lives and see witchcraft, in the form of black magic, as common practice in our society. Widely ‘stigmatized’ notions among Evangelicals, Charismatic Catholics, and many Spiritualists such as belief in Satan, direct communication with spirits (among Spiritualists), or the efficacy of spells (among Wiccans) circulate constantly throughout spiritual groups and networks. As Barkun (2015) observes, groups that carry one form of stigmatized knowledge are quite open to other stigmatized notions, taking the common rejection of their ideas by conventional authorities as a sign of their truthfulness. Thus, some spiritual milieux were apparently more amenable than others to explaining the pandemic with conspiracy theories, although there are also great divergences within them (Meintel, 2023).

New models of mobilization

Even very localized, marginal spiritual groups such as Druids and Wiccans are generally connected to transnational networks. I suggest that less communitarian and more network-driven spiritual groupings have some advantages for religious organizations. Impermanent, unbounded collectivities are showing up in classic religious traditions, such as Catholicism; in Montreal alone, one finds more and more Catholic-initiated pilgrimages, retreats (in-person or virtual), and prayer or meditation groups that are open to all comers and where participants are recruited online or through word of mouth.

Looser groupings also have advantages for social activism. Open-ended spiritual networks can be quickly mobilized across distance through communication technologies; for example, members of a small Wicca group in Montreal participated in synchronized prayers around the world during an oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico. The UNIFY movement for world peace has local chapters across the world. Through social media, it organizes synchronized meditations and prayer across the world and encourages local actions ‘from an inspired state of inner peace’, such as ‘cleaning up your local water supply, planting trees, or petitioning your local city council’. ¹²

A final example shows how global spiritual and religious networks can come together for a common cause. On 19 November 2021, a benefit event called the River Ganga Celebration was held in Rishikesh, India, to amass donations to GIWA, the Global Interfaith Wash (Water, Sanitation, and Hygiene for Everyone) Alliance is an interfaith advocacy organization that works ‘across creeds, castes and faiths’ for clean water, hygiene, women’s empowerment, and sanitation. ¹³ This alliance mobilizes transnationally for lobbying governments and international organizations (e.g. the World Bank, the United Nations) for social and environmental justice. The funds collected at the River Ganga celebration were used for planting trees along the river Ganges, building eco-friendly toilets along its banks, and other projects to safeguard its waters. Mobilized in an open-ended way across spiritual and artistic networks, it was accessible through the Internet in real time. Publicized throughout global spiritual and life coaching networks, the event featured the swami of a major ashram in Rishikesh, world-renowned singers, including several identified with Buddhism (Deva Primal and Miten) or with Sikhism (Satnam Kaur), and leaders of various religious traditions in a programme of chants, songs, prayers, meditations, and speeches. Online participants contributed by paying for tickets to watch the livestreamed festivities. Beside the leaders of major world traditions (Hindu, Christian, Jewish, Muslim, and others) were among others those were present at the event.

Conclusion

I have tried to show here that spiritualities where individualized subjective experience is prioritized often have relational dimensions that are intrinsic to their practice. Furthermore, the authenticity of one’s spiritual practice is often assessed in terms of its effects on social relationships. Finally, spirituality can become a resource for social action. I have presented a number of examples to show that spirituality can be mobilized for social and political ends. In some cases, spirituality and social activism are so deeply entwined that activism becomes a form of spiritual practice. A number of movements have emerged in recent years that combine spirituality and activism.

In Quebec, narratives of secularism often oppose religion in all its forms to social progress and the collective well-being of society. Spirituality is more generally acceptable than organized religion, associated with the Catholic Church, and is presumed to be a private matter. The merging of spirituality with social activism is likely to subvert such narratives in interesting ways in the future.