Crossbreeding Atheism with Spirituality: Notes on Soviet and Western Attempts

Abstract

The recent “nonreligious turn” in studies of secularity has changed the focus from what secularity lacks in comparison to religion to what it offers as an alternative. Various forms of nonreligion have been studied extensively in recent years, yet mostly in the contemporary Western societies. This article shifts the context more to the east and also towards the history by comparing two instances when meaning-making gained a central position within an atheist tradition. For our first example, we examine the appeal to spirituality in the period of late Soviet atheism; the second comes from contemporary Western “atheist spirituality”. By studying the publications by relevant authors, the article explores what can be learned about atheism and spirituality from this comparison, how atheism and spirituality are understood and combined, and the reasons for the sudden emphasis on existential questions within an atheist tradition.