Spirituality and the (secular) ordinary Australian imaginary

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Notes

Jennifer Sinclair is researching a PhD on spirituality, subjectivity and secularism in Australian culture through the Sociology Department of the School of Political and Social Inquiry at Monash University. Her work includes a consideration of everyday culture, public culture and analysis of some recent Australian texts. Correspondence to: Jennifer Sinclair, c/o School of Political and Social Inquiry, Monash University, PO Box 11A, Monash University, Victoria 3800, Australia. E‐mail: [email protected]

These were John Gray, Iyanla Vanzant, Phil McGraw, Suze Orman and Mark Bryant (Parkins, 2001, p. 143).

Dowrick has a presence beyond the newspaper column. She has published several books and novels. Her Website contains a comprehensive list of books and tapes available for purchase. Ostrow was known before she began her column in The Australian as one of Australia's leading writers on sex. She also hosted a controversial radio programme about sex

The relationship of religion to the (secular) Ordinary Australian imaginary is complex. As Hage suggests that ‘whiteness’ can be accrued (2002, p. 60), I suggest that ordinariness can be similarly accrued. Christianity, for example, can be a form of ordinariness when it is articulated as a commitment to conservative moral and social values but not when articulated in the ‘excess’ of Lindy Chamberlain's Seventh Day Adventism. Buddhism or Islam would be, therefore, counted as ‘not ordinary’ within the structure of the (secular) Ordinary Australian imaginary.

Another example of this is in a column about a mother's grief on the death of her infant daughter. Ostrow wrote: ‘I got to thinking about how we grieve in the West … It seems to me that in the East, people grow up understanding the impermanence of life and learning and how to mourn each passing: our lost dreams and opportunities, our beloved intimates and eventually our own lives’ (The Weekend Australian, 27 Oct. 2001, p. 23).

There is no agreement on the definition of such a term, although in the United States it has been strongly identified with the human potential movement. Neither Ostrow nor Dowrick use the language of potential in the sense of becoming a ‘better’ or ‘superhuman being’ (Possamai, 2000, p. 364). Their orientation is towards living life well rather than achievement. This may also support my thesis that it is too simplistic to read Dowrick's and Ostrow's work as evidence of a phenomenon transplanted from the United States, since achievement and the potential of individuals are tropes of American culture, not Australian culture. The term New Age also sometimes refers to ‘new’ religions such as Wicca and witchcraft, Satanism, paganism and so on (Bouma, 1997, pp. 17–18) but these are usually organized groups with particular beliefs and practices, unlike the more fluid terms of the spiritual and spirituality. New Age can also refer to belief in paranormal phenomena such as the healing powers of crystals, geographical sites and various forces and mediums.

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Jennifer Sinclair

Jennifer Sinclair is researching a PhD on spirituality, subjectivity and secularism in Australian culture through the Sociology Department of the School of Political and Social Inquiry at Monash University. Her work includes a consideration of everyday culture, public culture and analysis of some recent Australian texts. Correspondence to: Jennifer Sinclair, c/o School of Political and Social Inquiry, Monash University, PO Box 11A, Monash University, Victoria 3800, Australia. E‐mail: [email protected]