In the following study, we publish the results of our multiple cross-sectional study conducted at the Everness „lifestyle and awareness” festival in Hungary since 2016, focusing on the deviation from the religious situation in Hungary, the difficulties in conceptually defining the term ‚spirituality’, and the analysis of some empirical data. The growth of the increasingly popular ‚religious in its own way’ category since the second half of the 20th century and various research show that alternative approaches are emerging in addition to the traditional religious approach. The use of the concept of spirituality may provide some insight into these alternative methods, but due to its difficulties of typology, it does not fully cover reality. Festival religion provides a methodological and empirical framework for these inquiries that demonstrate the nature of alternative approaches. This kind of private religiosity deserves special attention and may encourage researchers to do more research on similar topics. Visitors to the Everness festival visit the event for mainly three reasons: to perform esoteric, spiritual activities, to perform psychologically relevant, self-knowledge exercises, and to practice healing methods that focus on physical and mental balance. We explored these three sets of visitor motivations empirically and present their results within the concept of festival religion.
Keywords: festival religion, spirituality, alternative religiosity, esotericism, awareness
