新時代靈性場域研究:台灣身心靈工作者的探索

The Field of New Age Spirituality: the Research of the Spiritual Practitioners in Taiwan

洪梓源(Tzu-Yuan Hung)

指導教授 ： 邱德亮

國立交通大學/人文社會學院/社會與文化研究所/博士(2018年)

摘要

所謂的新時代，經常被視為是個人化或私人化的宗教形式。有的人將之稱為「個人宗教」，在這論點中靈性被視為是每個人接觸神聖的媒介。有的人則將新時代視為是宗教世俗化或消費主義文化下的產物。在這觀點下，新時代的靈性實踐經常僅被視為是個人的宗教消費行為而已。

本論文的目的，即是調查台灣的身心靈產業，去檢視前述的「個人宗教」觀點是否正確。我使用了「靈性資本」這一概念做為我的分析工具，來觀察靈性市場中的競爭情形。從調查中發現，接觸身心靈產業的新時代人，往往是那些在社會中找不到自身定位的新興中產階級。為了解決這層困境，他們參與新時代以建立自身的社會認同。

換句話說，新時代不能僅用「個人化的宗教」的概念視之，因為那暗示了新時代人擁有不錯的社會處境。同時，調查也發現這群新時代人為了和既有的傳統宗教或較大的靈性派別競爭，他們使用了「靈性」的概念與之對抗，以正當化他們的社會處境。

關鍵字

新時代 ； 靈性 ； 靈性資本 ； 靈療 ； 新興中產階級

並列摘要

The so-called New Age is always seen as an individualized or privatized form of religion. Some take it as self-religion, in which the concept of spirituality is regarded as a way for people to be close to the sanctity, while some consider the rise of the New Age a result of secularization and consumerism. Under these circumstances, the spiritual practices here are merely treated as religious goods for every individual/customer.

The purpose of this study is to investigate the mind-body‐spirit market in Taiwan and to verify the concept of self-religion or individualized form of religion. I use the concept of "spiritual capital" as a theoretical tool to analyze the competition in the field.

From my research, I found that lots of the New Agers belong to the new middle class who face the crisis of status ambiguity. In order to deal with their status anxiety, they are engaged in spiritual therapy to construct their own identity.

That is to say, New Age is much more than an individualized form of religion, which wrongly implies those New Agers are people in a good social position. Also, the term "spirituality" here is strategically used by those New Agers when they are trying to struggle with the established religions or bigger fractions of spiritual field. In other words, the discourse of spirituality is somehow transformed to legitimate their social status.

並列關鍵字

New Age ； spirituality ； spiritual capital ； spiritual therapy ； the new middle class

參考文獻

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