SPIRITUAL BOYFRIENDS III
Spirituality and neoliberalism
Religious power
New Age spiritual tendencies consist of a complex of spiritualities that are no longer embedded in any religion (as is the case with all spiritualities of the past), but directly in secular (1) culture itself. These are often based on a "manipulation of existing symbolic systems", that is, they are established through hybridizations, reformulations and new syntheses of other practices and trends. Yoga is one of these trends.
There is a unifying symbol par excellence of secular New Age religiosity, which is based and emerges within the framework of individualist-capitalist society. And what could be the most representative symbol of this society? The "self" (2). The "self" as a new consumer god looking for products that hybridize spiritual and cultural symbols of different countries and eras such as: yoga accessories (mats, blocks, belts, blankets, instruments…), screensavers that symbolize the universe, Egyptian sacred geometry , numerology, mandalas, African tribal drawings, elements of nature, courses and tutorials, apps etc.
One of the best known phrases among New Age spiritualities is, "You are the creator of your reality." That is, you and only you are responsible for what you have and what you do not have. This is also a strategy adopted by neoliberal policies that point to all problems about the individual. So it is no coincidence that new forms of spirituality maintain a similar rhetoric and functioning to that of political-economic power. If you have no home it is because you are stupid, if not work is because you are lazy, if you are poor it is because you do not work hard enough and if you do not feel fulfilled it is because your spiritual “self” is too poor, not cultivated enough or you have not invested enough physical and economic capital. But there is no reason to worry about this system; to make up for these personal shortcomings, the market offers the possibility to buy practices of self-knowledge, self-development, self-helaling, self-improvement, personal growth and spiritual development. You can accomplish anything you want, the power is in your hands.
Where there is a need, the market is ready to offer/sell a product that adapts, satisfies that need and, incidentally produces new ones. It is no longer necessary or possible to point to a power of direct suppression, as the subject self-imposes him/herself “freely” and consumes all sorts of practices and products to improve self-discipline (3). This is how New Age spiritualities related to health, beauty, and body disciplines can become great hidden forms of social control, turning us into "docile bodies," "useful bodies (4)”.
J. HANEGRAAFF, Wouter (1999). New Age Spiritualities as Secular Religion: a Historian’s Perspective. “Secularization and the Autonomization of Spiritualities”. Social Compass 46(2), 1999, p.152
Ibid., p.154
Soto Flechas, Lisandro (2014) El ciberparaíso: magia, espiritualidad y misticismo de internet.
McGuire, M. B. (1990). Religion and the body: Rematerializing the human body in the social sciences of religion. “Power and Female Bodies, p.293.” Journal for the Scientific Study of Religion, 29, 283-296.