Politics of Awakening: Seeking Free Life and Social Change in Czech Conspiritual Milieu
 

My PhD project is a study of the political mobilizations within the Czech conspiritual milieu. People who are part of it are not united in one organization, even if they have certain ways of thinking and specific ways of perceiving the world in common. They often share the experience of “Awakening” – a recognition that the world is dominated and controlled by a powerful hidden force (described as the System or the Matrix) and a desire to live outside of its influence.

The awakened, as my interlocutors often call themselves, form loose assemblages and networks of people who share doubts about the nature of the modern world, who employ narratives of conspiracy and spirituality, and who are trying to enact social change. They are not united by coherent ideological principles, but rather by affective resonances and shared imaginaries, rooted in everyday life already transformed by their conspiritual turn. While they refuse to be classified as activists or as engaging in politics in the traditional sense, their actions, desires, and attachments reveal something important about the contemporary political landscape.

The awakened engage in a variety of practices – collectively building permaculture gardens, casting magic to depose the government, experimenting with non-hierarchical forms of organization, or developing new cryptocurrencies. These are not isolated actions but rather a conscious attempt to transform society. What might otherwise appear as fragmented or apolitical lifestyle choices gain coherence when understood as part of a broader prefigurative project. The awakened, deeply dissatisfied with parliamentary democracy, search for a new political form. This can be seen as a form of political engagement on its own right – one that resists conventional categories of ideology, organization, or activism, yet nevertheless participates in shaping imaginaries of societal transformation.

This research situates conspirituality within the broader context of prefigurative politics and populism. The narrative of Awakening both adheres to the neoliberal dogma of the self-governing individual who moves within the marketplace of ideas and offers a way to transcend it at the same time. Rather than perceiving these political mobilizations as an irrational outburst threatening the current political order, I suggest to open up the category of the political and pay attention to affective landscapes in which these mobilizations happen