Belonging among the Spiritual but not Religious: Belonging as a valued and sought after affective state for spiritual but not religious residents of Glastonbury UK.

Spiritual but not religious beliefs are often characterised by hyper individualistic beliefs without community. We suggest that the quest for a sense of belonging and likeminded community remains important to spiritual seekers. We detail findings from 30 semi-structured interviews conducted with people who are spiritual but not religious and live near to or in Glastonbury UK, a small town with a reputation as a New Age pilgrimage site and an area of high spiritual diversity. Thematic analysis conducted on transcripts of participant interviews highlighted the importance of affective belonging to participants. Participants were motivated to leave social contexts where they experienced a lack of affective belonging and many participants invested time and effort into finding sources of affective belonging and creating sources of affective belonging for others. This paper challenges the notion that spiritual but not religious individuals are un-interested in sources of belonging and suggest that future work into the role of community among the spiritual but not religious should focus on affective belonging rather than group labels.