Readings Week 11: Aboriginal Spirituality in a New Age

by Laura Green

I found Suttons article very interesting, although, the article was quite hard for me to follow, as I have absolutely no knowledge of Indigenous spirituality (something I will probably try to rectify after reading this piece). I found the idea that Indigenous spiritualties could co-exist dually with the Christian faith for some people, very interesting. Sutton’s suggestion that this is because Indigenous religion, particularly that of the Wik people, has always been central to social culture and politics seems quite reasonable to me.

Sutton goes on in his article to argue that the idea of Indigenous spirituality being centered on the “earth mother” ideal is actually a new age spiritual idea that has been superimposed onto Indigenous religion. He states this is a spiritual belief that is more influenced by Native American religion and not actually directly linked to historical Indigenous Australian spirituality. This was a new idea to me, as of the little I have heard about Indigenous religion, the theme of “the earth is our mother” is a common one. However, Sutton points out that many Indigenous societies saw the land as being connected to their ancestors. In this sense they did not see themselves as coming from the earth as a whole, but from the land that their ancestors belonged to.  

It is clear in the article that many scholars view this mix up of Indigenous Spirituality with New Age Spirituality quite negatively. They think that in associating Indigenous religion with New Age Spirituality, Indigenous culture and history is threatened. Whilst this might be true if people are not fully aware of this phenomenon, I think that if people were more educated about it, then this could be seen as another example of a religion changing to meet the demands of modernity. As long as people understand that the “mother earth” philosophy that is often preached in regards to Indigenous spirituality is actually not an authentic Indigenous belief, then the merging of the two is actually quite an interesting occurrence. Sutton states in his article that the Indigenous people most likely to accept this New Age type spirituality are those who are quite distanced from their traditional Indigenous beliefs and most integrated into the industrial society. Hence, this addition of New Age religion gives them an opportunity to observe some forms of their ancestral heritage whilst maintaining their modernised lifestyle.

References

Peter Sutton, “Aboriginal Spirituality in a New Age,” The Australian Journal of Anthropology 21, no.1 (2010): 71-89.