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Contribution short abstract

This paper shows how engagements with capitalist profit-making are understood within the conspiritual milieu in the Czech Republic. Following “the awakened” engaging with a particular MLM scheme I argue that they attempt to enchant and transform logic of capitalism.

Contribution long abstract

This paper follows conspiritual networks in the Czech Republic and their entanglements with capitalism. People who experienced “the awakening” organize themselves into small groups that seek futures beyond the current neoliberal order. Their vision of a better world is centered around permaculture gardening, collective healing, energy attunement, cryptocurrencies, and circular economy. Yet they remain deeply entangled within capitalist logic and modes of labor.

I choose engagements of one such group with an MLM scheme as a case study, which gestures to more general trends within the conspiritual milieu. The “MyTrees” project promises to produce profit and save rainforests by growing trees at eucalyptus plantations in Columbia. Those who buy enough shares via the app can join the “Little Bohemia,” a colony for Czechoslovakian awakened which is to be built next to the plantations. This is imagined as a space where life can flourish and a better society be prefigured – with a part of the land planned to be shared and used as commons.

How do these imaginaries of commoning emerge next to the projects of venture capitalism, and how do the awakened deal with these seemingly glaring contradictions? The awakened are often aware of the problematic aspects of the project, including the danger of getting scammed, and remain critical of capitalist exploitation. Nevertheless, the promise of “Little Bohemia” and the digital economy finds deep resonance. I argue that this is an attempt to enchant capitalism and redirect its vitality towards the flourishing of forms of life beyond it. Within the awakening, MLM schemes, cryptocurrencies, or permaculture gardens can become signs imbued with the possibility of common prosperity. Rather than seeing such entanglements as proof of capitalist co-optation, I ask to what degree radical visions of the future can co-opt capitalist logic and produce hope at the same time.