I recently read a blog post by a Humanist who was describing a phrase I frequently hear invoked these days: "Humanist spirituality." (See Doug's post: "Spirituality and the Humanist") A couple of weeks ago someone mentioned to me the "new spirituality" that will begin to emerge in 2012, when, according to the Mayan calendar, a new age shall dawn upon the human race. Reflecting on these two occurrences, I was struck by the fact that two modes of thought so diametrically opposed to one another both invoke the term "spirituality" to express their belief systems. I believe this to be symptomatic of the fact that the term "spirituality" (or "spiritual," or "spirit") has come to lack an essential meaning in our culture. In this post I will explain how that came to be the case. In my next post I will advocate that we need to return to the traditional meaning of the term.
When I think about how the term "spirituality" has come to lack an essential meaning in our culture, I find myself pondering Gilbert Ryle's (1949) critique of René Descartes’ philosophy (mind-body dualism). In short, in good Materialist fashion, Ryle was stating that consciousness must arise from matter (from the activity of the brain), which flies in the face of the more traditional (religious) notion, articulated by Descartes, that consciousness does not depend upon matter for its existence, but rather inhabits the body independently; like a "ghost in the machine," to invoke Ryle's famous critique.
Ryle's critique is symbolic of the fact that Materialism, along with its kin, e.g.: Evolutionary Biology (Charles Darwin), Sociology (Max Weber), and Biblical Criticism (David Strauss) has come to undermine the more traditional (religious) notion of human nature. Consequently, the term "spirituality," though retained in our common vernacular, has not only lost its original meaning but further morphed into a variety of different meanings.
For instance, in Doug's post he defines "spirituality" as "an awareness of the gap between what you can experience and what you can describe," whereas in New Age parlance "spirituality" refers to almost any notion of transcendent principles, entities, or ideas, e.g.: "The Secret," "spirit guides," and "auras." Critiquing these two notions of "spirituality," it seems that in the first instance the term is reducible merely to an individual’s failure of the English language - the awareness that one is unable to express an experience in words. In the second instance the term is inflated to such an extent that anyone and everyone's ideas about the "spiritual" realm are inherently valid - after all, the (weak) argument goes, "There are more things in heaven and earth, Horatio, than are dreamt of in your philosophy." - William Shakespeare's Hamlet
Of course, Humanism and New Age thinking represent only two examples of the ways in which the term "spirituality" has morphed into a variety of different meanings today. Though they happen to represent the two ends of the meaning continuum for this term, many other meanings of the term are in use as well. While I don't have time to elaborate on those here, suffice it to say that they all tend to conflate certain mental, emotional, and physical experiences into an understanding of "spirituality." Exactly why this is problematic should become clear by the end of my third post. In the meantime, I invite you to ponder the words of Thomas Henry Huxley:
How it is that anything so remarkable as a state of consciousness comes about as a result of irritating nervous tissue is just as unaccountable as the appearance of Djin when Aladdin rubbed his lamp.
Namaste,
Alex
When I think about how the term "spirituality" has come to lack an essential meaning in our culture, I find myself pondering Gilbert Ryle's (1949) critique of René Descartes’ philosophy (mind-body dualism). In short, in good Materialist fashion, Ryle was stating that consciousness must arise from matter (from the activity of the brain), which flies in the face of the more traditional (religious) notion, articulated by Descartes, that consciousness does not depend upon matter for its existence, but rather inhabits the body independently; like a "ghost in the machine," to invoke Ryle's famous critique.
Ryle's critique is symbolic of the fact that Materialism, along with its kin, e.g.: Evolutionary Biology (Charles Darwin), Sociology (Max Weber), and Biblical Criticism (David Strauss) has come to undermine the more traditional (religious) notion of human nature. Consequently, the term "spirituality," though retained in our common vernacular, has not only lost its original meaning but further morphed into a variety of different meanings.
For instance, in Doug's post he defines "spirituality" as "an awareness of the gap between what you can experience and what you can describe," whereas in New Age parlance "spirituality" refers to almost any notion of transcendent principles, entities, or ideas, e.g.: "The Secret," "spirit guides," and "auras." Critiquing these two notions of "spirituality," it seems that in the first instance the term is reducible merely to an individual’s failure of the English language - the awareness that one is unable to express an experience in words. In the second instance the term is inflated to such an extent that anyone and everyone's ideas about the "spiritual" realm are inherently valid - after all, the (weak) argument goes, "There are more things in heaven and earth, Horatio, than are dreamt of in your philosophy." - William Shakespeare's Hamlet
Of course, Humanism and New Age thinking represent only two examples of the ways in which the term "spirituality" has morphed into a variety of different meanings today. Though they happen to represent the two ends of the meaning continuum for this term, many other meanings of the term are in use as well. While I don't have time to elaborate on those here, suffice it to say that they all tend to conflate certain mental, emotional, and physical experiences into an understanding of "spirituality." Exactly why this is problematic should become clear by the end of my third post. In the meantime, I invite you to ponder the words of Thomas Henry Huxley:
How it is that anything so remarkable as a state of consciousness comes about as a result of irritating nervous tissue is just as unaccountable as the appearance of Djin when Aladdin rubbed his lamp.
Namaste,
Alex
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