Mapping the Varieties of “Spiritual” Biographies

Abstract

In the Bielefeld-based Cross-cultural Study on “Spirituality,” the qualitative data consists of 102 rated faith development interview s with 54 persons from the USA and 48 from Germany who have been selected according to their focus group membership, i.e. according to their self-identification as “spiritual,” “religious,” both or neither, and as “theist” or “non-theist.” This brief chapter presents an overview of the interviews that were selected for elaboration of the case studies in the chapters to follow. This selection has aimed at presenting the varieties of “spirituality” in their lives as told in the Faith Development Interview s (FDIs). Thus, besides basic demographic characteristics such as country, age , gender , and religious affiliation , “spiritual” self-identification was an important criterion. Further contributions for mapping the varieties of “spirituality” derive from the coordinates “openness” and “mysticism ” (Chap. 14). Finally we introduce the organization of chapters, based on this preliminary map of “spiritual” trajectories.