Militancy of the Soul: A Biographical Approach to Former Revolutionaries Turned Spiritulity

This proposal stems from my doctoral thesis research, which explores the life stories of former communist militants from the late Francoist period who later embraced a spiritual path. My presentation seeks to provide sociological insights drawn from these biographical trajectories.

The testimonies of my informants hold particular value because of the exuberance of cultural proposals that characterised the 1970s, coupled with the moment of political transition and the end of the dictatorship in Spain. However, my research does not aim to contribute to the existing mythification of that generation, but rather to assess the extent to which personal involvement - first political and then spiritual – emerges as a consequence, as well as a symptom, of the evolution of collective expectations in the contemporary society.

In a plural world, Peter Berger's concept of ‘alternations’ -as a secular variant of traditional conversions, which resonate with the religions of the Book or revealed religions- invites us to rethink the cases studied within a complex symbolic landscape, marked by a shared utopian vision and a countercultural stance toward society. Without wanting to identify a single cause to explain the spiritual drift of my informants, we can recognise strategies of maintaining a sense of ‘authenticity’ and a commitment that have changed register to keep pace with a world that has been transformed in a direction that has not always met the expectations they had in their revolutionary past.