ABSTRACT
This chapter engages with Adam Ashforth's notion of “spiritual insecurity” and the concept of “ordinary ethics” developed by Veena Das and Michael Lambek to explore examples of spiritual and class insecurity in South African culture and literature. Theorized as unmanageable danger resulting from belief in the impact of the spiritual on the material, Ashforth's notion of spiritual insecurity has resonance with Jean Comaroff and John Comaroff's notions of “millennial capital” and “occult economics.” Spiritual and class insecurity is illustrated in this chapter with reference to white religious revivalism, black occult allegations, and the financial schemes and ambitions of black youth seeking instantaneous wealth and status. Analyzing the literary fiction of Niq Mhlongo, the chapter also argues such insecurities are a continuing part of middle-class black life and culture. It is also argued that a fraction of the black middle class are fundamentally reimagining traditional African religion in a recognizably New Age manner, as positive spiritual solutions to material and political problems.
