This project seeks to explore the spiritual identity and spiritual journeys of individuals in the modern world. It focuses on how we experience the spiritual. Whatever pathway we take and wherever we are on that journey, we create an identity that integrates a spiritual component.
Aims & Objectives
This project seeks to explore the spiritual identity and spiritual journeys of individuals in the modern world. It focuses on how we experience the spiritual. Whatever pathway we take and wherever we are on that journey, we create an identity that integrates a spiritual component.
This site contains information about diverse spiritualities in Canada, including descriptions of major beliefs and practices, contact info, and locations in Canada (if applicable).
We would love to hear from anyone willing to share the story of their spiritual journey and include more information on this site if you would like to participate.
Background
The Spirituality in the Modern World project grew out of Dr. Clive Baldwin’s interest in the relationship between narrative/narration/narrativity and how we make sense of the world and who we are in it. Alisdair MacIntyre argues that to understand ourselves – know who we are – we need to understand the tradition – narratives – of which we are a part. Dr Baldwin’s work on trans ableism – the need or desire to acquire a physical impairment – aging, and Munchhausen syndrome by proxy has often focused on how to create, maintain, and restore a viable, sustainable identity when the outside world proffers little support for those identities.
In the realms of religion and spirituality, the wider world privileges certain paths, tolerates others, and is hostile towards yet others. Some paths can draw upon extensive cultural resources to sustain the identity of individuals, but others have fewer resources on which to draw to do so. For example, the cultural resources available to support a Catholic identity are far, far greater than those available to support Other kin identity.
Project Goal
The Spirituality in the Modern World project seeks to explore how members of New Religious Movements, practitioners of alternative spiritualities, and members of other non-mainstream faiths create, maintain, and restore their spiritual identities through the stories they tell of themselves in interaction with the stories told about them.
The project started in 2016-17 with a handful of interviews with members of New Religious Movements and those who identified as pagan. On the back of these exploratory interviews, an application to the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council was made to extend the remit of the project. Funding was granted for two years through the Insight Development Grant program. Between 2018 and 2020, the project focused on Other-than-Human identities (Otherkin, therians, vampires) and Earth-based faiths (Pagans, Wicca, Witches, Druids, Heathens, etc).
In 2021, Dr Baldwin and colleagues were successful in another grant application to build on this work. Funding was received from the SSHRC Insight Grant program for five years to explore spiritual identity across multiple New Religious Movements and alternative spiritualities, with further work on the implications for inter-faith dialogue.
Project Timeline
Project Documents
SSHRC Project Description
This is the description of the project as submitted to the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council, from which we received funding.
Ethics Approval
This is the most recent letter of approval from the St. Thomas University Research Ethics Board.