In her “Toward a Metamodern Reading of Spiritual but Not Religious Mysticisms,” Linda C. Ceriello frames being SBNR as evidencing a new means of engaging with mysticisms through what has been described as a metamodern epistemic shift. By... more
In her “Toward a Metamodern Reading of Spiritual but Not Religious Mysticisms,” Linda C. Ceriello frames being SBNR as evidencing a new means of engaging with mysticisms through what has been described as a metamodern epistemic shift. By way of examining how mystical material “performs” in a post-postmodern, secular milieu, she investigates the potential utility of the theoretical category of metamodernism that some are putting forth as a successor to postmodernism. She asks how this new category might help us to both account for shifting levels of normativity around mysticism in contemporary culture, and to expose a new dimension of the choice to identify as SBNR. She then posits the significance of the relationship between the two as a reflexive construction of spaces of liminality analogous to the mystical encounter itself, which mirror contemporary individuals’ felt experiences: of being in-between, of being neither this nor that, and a sense of being both/and —secular and spiritual. Theorizing of a metamodern sensibility is further applied in addressing the significant roles that pop culture and social media have played as the New Age gave way to the SBNR. This move, she suggests, has paved the way for a cultural narrative of a different sort--one that may offer not only a new angle on universalist (modern) and constructivist (postmodern) cultural readings, but a kind of reconciliation of the two that is consequently uniquely reflective of, and responsive to, contemporary secular-spiritualities. Such an analysis aptly culminates in a reconsideration of the oft-cited (and usually pejorative) critique of the social mission and “community” (if any) inherent in being SBNR.
