Desperately seeking summerland: The abyss-mal present and the perfect future in spiritualism, surrealism, and the spirituality at work movement
Martin Corbett, University of Warwick
This paper examines the role of sur-reality in the development of critical thinking about the future as it resides within the present (time out of joint). It explores some of the commonalities shared by the spiritualist movement of the 19th century, the surrealist movement of the early 20th century, and the 'Spirituality at Work' movement of the late 20th and early 21st century. All three are quite literally 'movements' as, in locating themselves in-between the extant social world and a desired future social world, they each profess to offer the means for followers to move from the flawed present to a more perfect world. Each share a belief in
(1) the important role played by the medium or seer;
(2) the key role of non-conscious action or automatism in achieving personal enlightenment and the transformation of social organisation towards a more perfect future state; and
(3) an opposition to, and yet fascination with, the established institutions of scientific authority.
The work of members of the Society of Psychical Research, the Bureau of Surrealist Research, and Workplace Spirituality is examined to illustrate these commonalities.
The paper then goes on to argue that the historical trajectory of the organising tendencies of these movements reveals a transition away from an acephalous proto-feminism to a centralised patriarchy.
The paper concludes with an appraisal of the future of critical organisation and management studies which perhaps has much more in common with both the underlying philosophy and organisational trajectory of these three movements than proponents may care to admit.