Occidental Studies

A Critical Analysis of New Spirituality from the Perspective of Oswald Spengler

Document Type : Research Paper

Author

reza gandomi nasrabadi

Faculty Member of the Department of Philosophy, University of Tehran

10.30465/os.2026.53016.2070
Abstract
Oswald Spengler distinguishes between culture and civilization, arguing that the decline of civilization results from the loss of meaning, religion, and spiritual creativity within culture. In his view, the dominance of rationalism, materialism, and skepticism transforms culture into civilization and gives rise to a profound spiritual crisis. Under such conditions, the emergence of "Second Religiosity"—manifested in new religious movements and spiritualities—becomes the clearest sign of civilizational decline, as individuals seek alternative sources of meaning to fill the resulting existential void. These movements take the form of syncretic religions, new spiritual trends, political ideologies, scientism, nationalism, and other secular substitutes. Using a descriptive-analytical approach based on The Decline of the West, this study examines the relationship between culture, civilization, and spirituality in Spengler's thought and evaluates his explanation of the rise of new spiritual movements. Although Spengler's analysis offers significant philosophical insights, its historical determinism, inconsistency regarding the comparability of cultures, and reduction of the origins of new spiritualities solely to the crisis of meaning constitute its principal theoretical limitations.

Keywords

Oswald Spengler
Comparative Morphology of Cultures
Spiritual Crisis
Second Religiosity
New Religious and Spiritual Movements

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