Re-telling the “Story So Far”: Reconsidering Sport and Spirituality in Light of the New Age

Abstract

ABSTRACTSport and spirituality is a burgeoning academic area of study (Jirasek, 2015). To date, the field has been dominated by Christian scholarship (Watson & Parker, 2011). Incidentally, the history of the field is often narrated from a Christocentric viewpoint. Such narratives downplay, denigrate, or ignore the impact of other religious ideas. This article highlights New Age thinking as a primary driver of sport and spirituality, and problematizes exclusively Christianized historiographies of the field. Exposing connections to New Age figures and ideas, this article demonstrates the necessity of a more nuanced narrative of the field of sport and spirituality. It concludes by suggesting that scholars of sport should critically attend to the historiographical, theoretical, and methodological developments of a field, as these are inherently political practices.