Spirituality as a Relationship to the Immaterial

May 31st, 2007 Fred McVittie

The signs of spirituality vary in detail from one practice to another, but a general set of symptoms might include:

• A sense of connection with something ‘larger’ than oneself
• A sense of the existence of a ‘higher power’
• (Occasionally) the presence of this ‘higher power’ in quasi-human form
• The feeling that one’s understanding is somehow ‘deeper’ or conversely that one’s consciousness is ‘higher’
• A feeling of meaningfulness: that one possesses a satisfactory answer to the fundamental questions of existence, even if one could not put that answer into words (unfortunately)
• A dissolution of the ego, such that one feels the boundaries between self and world weakening or disappearing completely
• etc
• etc

Some, all, or more of these symptoms appear in testimony and creed of all the world’s major religions, as well as in the writings of individual mystics (and eccentrics) from Sri Aurobindo to David Icke. Many of the organised practices which religions offer seem to be designed to create the circumstances whereby such symptoms are created, enhanced, and supported.

An interesting feature of these spiritual feelings is that, whilst they tend to be similar across a wide range of belief systems, the actual object of this spirituality can vary enormously. Religious practices have worshipped the Sun, the Moon, one’s ancestors, the Earth, the Sky, the Ocean, a man (in the abstract, and written large), the Stars, etc. and all of these objects seem to invoke the same set of feelings and states. What this implies is that spirituality is best understood not as related to some particular belief or doctrine, but is a relatively specific state of mind, an altered state of consciousness that can be induced by a number of different means and originating in a number of different objects.

The range of possible objects assigned as catalysts for spiritual engagement is not infinite however, and there do seem to be certain criteria that such objects must fulfill before they can be used to invoke spiritual feelings. The primary and necessary criteria for such objects is that they be ultimately immaterial and unavailable to direct access by the senses. Religious and spiritual totems are all deeply abstract and can only be conceptualised through indirect means, primarily through the use of metaphor. Even such apparently concrete religious objects such as the Earth is not worshipped directly in its materiality but in the mental switch from the profane to the sacred is transformed into an essentialist abstraction. Earth worshippers do not worship the earth but ‘The Earth’, a abstract concept only apprehensible through metaphor. (It is paradoxical that in the case of Earth worship, since ‘The Earth’ is abstract and outside the realm of direct sensory embodiment, one must substitute a metaphor for this abstraction, and this metaphor is usually the actual material Earth itself. In this case, Earth effectively stands in for itself.)

Spirituality can therefore be seen as one possible felt relationship between consciousness and those aspects of cognition which are beyond direct experience. This particular felt relationship consists of a set of characteristic emotional and mental states, some of which are listed above.

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