Narrativising Spirituality, Wellness, and Planetary Wellbeing

The wellness industry, previously described as the ‘spiritual marketplace’ (Roof, Spiritual marketplace: Baby Boomers and the Remaking of American Religion. Princeton University Press, 1999), is typically categorised as neoliberal and individualised, yet recent research on contemporary spirituality and wellness movements stresses its social and ethical dimensions (Clot-Garrell & Griera, Beyond narcissism: Towards an analysis of the public, political and collective forms of contemporary spirituality. Religions, 10(10), 579–599, 2019; Halafoff et al., Spiritual complexity in Australia: Wellbeing and risks, Social Compass, 70(2), 243–262, 2023; Watts, The spiritual turn in Canada: ‘Spiritual but not Religious’ Canadian millennials. In T. Shoemaker, R. Schneider & X. Alvizo (Eds.), The emerging church, millennials, and religion: Volume 2: Curations and durations (pp. 81–90). Cascade Books, 2022). This chapter draws on the quantitative and qualitative findings of the 2021 Spirituality and Wellness (SWell) in Australia pilot study. Narratives of spirituality, shared in interviews with and media appearances of wellness influencers and spiritual practitioners in the Australian context, also indicate that wellness is not simply a personal pursuit but one that is deeply entwined with planetary wellbeing and ‘relational naturalism’ (Halafoff et al., 2023). Concurrently, these narratives have at times been framed as a conspiratorial clash between those emancipating the New Earth from the New World Order (Halafoff et al., Selling (con)spirituality and COVID-19 in Australia: Convictions, complexity and countering dis/misinformation. Journal for the Academic Study of Religion, 35(2), 141–167, 2022b; Ward & Voas, The emergence of conspirituality. Journal of Contemporary Religion, 26(1), 3–121, 2011). This chapter argues that narrativising ethical and relational spirituality is central to a critical understanding of wellness that recognises its complex dynamics, connections with planetary wellbeing, and possible risks.