Paper short abstract:

The paper analyzes the ways how the post-modern alternative spirituality discourses actively influence the academia. The situation is illustrated on the ancient Maya studies of the last two decades and their interpretation of ancient Maya "religion" and "spirituality".

Paper long abstract:

The paper explores the discourse of spirituality and its impact on the realm of the study of religion and culture at large. The usual intents to define "spirituality" try to comprise together the original Christian theological use with the concept of spiritual experience mostly applied in psychology of religion and combine those two layers of meaning with its post-modern interpretation largely synonymous with the outdated term of "New Age Movement". However, the essentialist attitude towards the term largely obscures its discursive nature and helps to spread an unreflected influence of post-modern alternative spiritualities in the social sciences and humanities. The situation is illustrated by the ancient Maya studies in the 1990-2000s and their core concept of Maya religion / Maya spirituality as presented in Schele and Freidel's influential book Maya Cosmos.