Spiritual activism

In an article on yoga practice and spiritual activism, Womanist scholar Jillian Carter Ford states that "spiritual notions of oneness, such as the oneness of mind/body and the oneness of all people, sets in motion a spiritual activism wherein spirituality is engaged to create social and ecological uplift." For beginners, this often means unlearning or deconstructing "a host of harmful messages we have been socialized to believe."^[5] Ecowomanist Layli Maparyan describes spiritual activism as "putting spirituality to work for positive social and ecological change."^[6]

The concept emerged in late 20th and early 21st century scholarship in the fields of

According to those who engage in the work of spiritual activism, the practice involves developing one's internal capacities in order to create and inspire change in the material world or society at large.[8] Thus, inherent to the work of spiritual activism is an awareness of a power beyond the material to address a dissatisfaction in the status quo.

Chicana feminist

Chicana feminist

Activists can so easily fall into the trap of … ignoring inconvenient truths… Because truth is so vital to spirituality, the activist motivated from this depth never as a final, dogmatic solution. A spiritual activist is one who puts truth before all else, hence the title of Gandhi’s autobiography: Experiments with Truth.^[12]

In her examination of the lives and work of people she considers as having "real success,"^[13] Alaskan therapist Wanda Krause states that such people:

consciously choose actions according to notions of principles ... They move beyond the material to embrace a higher intelligence – and experience real success.

Some of those I have studied do not feel that they are spiritual at all. Some activists do not wish to be elevated to any notion of greatness as they assure me they have their share of past mistakes. Not everyone who I refer to as a spiritual activist affirms a religious belief.

…The truly successful align their goals with conscious duty and purpose. … spiritual activists reflect something beyond rational opportunist thinking – a guidance, higher knowing, strong inner calling and principled action.^[13]

Alastair McIntosh goes on to say

Spiritual activism works mainly at the pre-political level. It digs the pilot channels into which subsequent political processes can flow. [Spirituality is] central to activism because it is, first of all, a way of knowing. That leads on to a way of doing, and from thee, to a way of being in what becomes a positive feedback loop…. They all reinforce one another.^[12]

And, stressing the importance of a spiritual basis for any effective activism, he states:

Spirituality values wholes as sacred. Sacredness is not a capitulation to superstition. Sacred is the appropriate adjective for whole things that cannot be taken apart and put back together again, and therefore cannot be valued in material terms (quoting Hafiz’ tale of robbers of a large diamond): healthy forests, snow leopards, clean rivers, starry nights, daughters and brothers and lovers and friends. If nothing is sacred, nothing is safe from the mechanizers of life and calculators of profit; and until we find ways to resacralize our world appropriately, there can be no end to the carnage.^[12]

Spirituality is widely dismissed in the Western world and within Western institutions as a result of what is known as the Cartesian split: the doctrine introduced by René Descartes in the 1600s to ensure that scientists could practice without fear of oppression by the Roman church. Through the European Enlightenment and legacy of colonialism that followed, the division between the linear, rational methods of science and the intuitive, relational practices of religion and spirituality was imposed on Indigenous peoples as well, discounting the practices and ways of knowing that had developed independently of European science. As a result, the work of numerous scholars, most of whom are women of color and Chicana feminists, have been discounted. For example, many scholars in academia tend to ignore Gloria Anzaldúa's discussion of spirituality, even while recognizing her contributions to feminist theory and borderlands theory. Supporters of spiritual activism argue that, by ignoring this element of Anzaldúa's work, these academics are missing the practice that actually developed Anzaldúa's important theoretical contributions.^[1]

AnaLouise Keating states that this is because academics are trained "to rely almost exclusively on rational thought, anti-spiritual forms of logical reasoning, and empirical demonstrations." M. Jacqui Alexander states that "there is a tacit understanding that no self-respecting postmodernist would want to align herself (at least in public) with a category such as the spiritual, which appears [to them] so fixed, so unchanging, so redolent of tradition."^[1]

While the Cartesian split between spirituality and science affects all seekers of knowledge, Laura E. Pérez argues that the general dismissal of spirituality (especially outside of organized religion) is a legacy of colonialism that has situated women of color and spirituality as "the inferior opposites to the rational, Christian, Western European, and male" and that this dismissal is rooted in the West's need to affirm itself as superior, civilized, and more advanced. Pérez notes that spirituality is generally dismissed in the West as:

superstition, folk belief, or New Age delusion, when not relegated to the socially controlled spaces of the orientalist study of 'primitive animism' or of 'respectable' religion within dominant culture. Even in invoking the spiritual as a field articulated through cultural differences, and in so doing attempting to displace dominant Christian notions of the spiritual while addressing the fear of politically regressive essentialisms, to speak about the s/Spirit and the spiritual in U.S. culture is risky business that raises anxieties of different sorts.^[14]

Irene Lara notes that women of color and "all 'others' who have been similarly other-ized and fragmented" are at the center of spiritual activist work and must fight against being dismissed and silenced in the Western world. As Lara states, "though we aim to transform our selves and our worlds, the reality is that we are part of a society still largely organized around racist and sexist binary ways of knowing."^[2] Ana Castillo states:

Who in this world of the glorification of material wealth, whiteness, and phallic worship would consider us [marginalized women] holders of knowledge that could transform this world into a place where the quality of life for all living things on this planet is the utmost priority, where we are all engaged in a life process that is meaningful from birth to death, where we accept death as organic to life, where death does not come to us in the form of one more violent and unjust act committed against our right to live?^[15]