The Spirituality Gap: Searching for Meaning in a Secular Age

Abi Millar is a journalist and author living in London. She studied English at Cambridge University and science journalism at City University London, and has written for outlets including Patient, Netdoctor, Elle, Harper’s Bazaar, New Statesman, and Vice. She is also a yoga teacher with a long-standing fascination with the intersection of critical thinking and spirituality. The Spirituality Gap is her first book.

Abi grew up in an evangelical church, but after losing her faith, she found herself searching for spirituality elsewhere. Torn between the logical part of her brain and the part that secretly believes in magic, and in the wake of a great loss, she wondered whether her crisis of faith was part of a larger story: at a time when more and more people in the Western world are moving away from organised religion, what does spirituality look like?

Abi receives a shamanic healing, drinks ayahuasca, delves into astrology, experiences an awakening in a lake, and attends an atheist church. She explores our post-religious world from the perspective of someone who is neither an ‘overtly spiritual hippie’ nor an angry atheist. Throughout, she asks: how?