The curious world of spirituality

I am utterly fascinated by spirituality. It is a substantial part of my life and I spend a great deal of time contemplating spiritual concepts. The term is used widely and loosely in contemporary culture, but what really is it? Out of curiosity, I checked Merriam-Webster for an official description, which defines spirit first and foremost as:

an animating or vital principle held to give life to physical organisms.

This implies a discernable separation between the physical form and a mysterious life-giving energy. It creates an image of the human body as a mere receiver, inhabited by some higher-intelligence, like a puppet being controlled off-camera by its master. Under this definition, organic beings as we know them would be lifeless without the manifestation of spirit, which could also be called the soul.¹ A working definition of spirituality can thus be given as a framework of concepts and ideas related to non-physical existence.² Intuitively, this may seem better left to the realm of imaginative speculation; however, speaking as a relatively new researcher operating in an overwhelmingly saturated culture of science, this sounds like a goldmine. I envision a future where spirituality is respected as a central domain of discovery, led by visionary explorers of all things surreal, exchanging and converging upon a working model of the non-physical world.

Spirituality as a field is far from being accepted in mainstream science and not overly attractive to emerging scholars, maybe for good reason—hypothetical forces that we cannot see are hard to delegate resources towards. I cannot make any definite claims as to the exact nature of this illusive realm, but I can speak to my experiences and attempt to mold an intelligible and open dialogue around the subject. If a vastly interconnected, unseen world was to exist, it would certainly be worthwhile to gain some awareness of it and even understand its mechanics. Many fundamental concepts in the world of spirituality are yet to be rigorously backed-up by modern day empirical methods, but to my knowledge, are also not disproven. A prime example of this is the human energy body, thought to be comprised of chakras, vortices of energy rooted at various points of the spine and other body regions, the aura, a shield-like bubble of energy surrounding the entire body, and cords/meridians, filaments of flowing energy that connect one energy body to another, or energetic “organs” to each other. Evidence of the energy body, perhaps via a novel imaging technique, would firmly root the world of spirituality as a field of scientific inquiry and spark what could be a revolutionary shift in focus for academics, young and old.

For context, I have a modest background in spiritual teachings, healings and experiences; regardless, I strive to maintain a healthy level of skepticism. This does not stem from the lack of widespread acceptance; I vehemently believe that even the most basic of scientific ideologies should be questioned. The importance of refraining from dogmatism is paramount in crafting a healthy path forward for new ideas and methods to emerge. Furthermore, concepts like the soul and energy body are massively trendy amongst the general population. You can lay down in a yoga class and hear the facilitator talk about chakras or hear about the beauty of one’s aura in popular music. This is not necessarily a bad thing—gradual soft exposure to foreign concepts helps people shift into a more open-minded state such that they can eventually receive and integrate them. It is telling, however, and shows that many are taking these concepts as real entities, perhaps not even considering their credibility. Knowledge of the energy body can be found in thousands of books; for example, the physical body regions corresponding to different chakras or the ideal color of a healthy aura. There may very well be a relationship between specific chakras and various organs, or a certain energetic makeup, whatever that means, of an aura that allows for optimal functioning; however, without a solid understanding of the subtleties and complexities around the scientific method, one may be unable to decipher useful information from pure speculation. This is especially so in a field of inquiry with so little history of peer-reviewed publication, such as that of spirituality.

“Science is all metaphor.” - Timothy Leary

Nevertheless, there exists a significant subset of people who will recognize and utilize these concepts regardless of their demonstrable validity, in which case, it may be helpful to investigate the roots of their details. I have heard mystic-types claim divine inspiration as their source—that the details shine through in a deeply-connected meditative state. However, reiterating a point made in my first article, if we as impartial judges are to take the subjective experience of another as true, as a representation of something objective, then that person must be taken as strictly integral—honest and unattached to any particular outcome or ideologic tract. Perhaps it is possible for us to receive answers from some higher power while we are in flow states. I myself have had many experiences, often facilitated by powerful psychoactive substances, where I found myself journaling out ideas that had no conceivable origin within my physical background. It was as if I had opened up a conduit to some storage bank of information and my pen was acting as a means of transference, taking knowledge from somewhere else, place unknown, and bringing it into the here and now. This begs an interesting question: for every mechanism, phenomenon and correlation that is, from minute to massive, whether we see them, believe them or not, is there a corresponding potential for empirical data? Can everything that is be proven to be? If not, if there are some things that just cannot be shown, empirically, to exist, despite their genuine existence, we may need to consider the experiences of people who are inherently honest. Anecdotes of purely integral people are, in an idealistic sense, empirical, and may possibly be the only venue to explore these types of hypotheses.³

Wildly enough, while I was already well-through the bulk of this post, I stumbled upon a highly-relevant and fascinating book in a local shop, titled Rainbow Body: A History of the Western Chakra System from Blavatsky to Brennan. Not only did this highlight an interesting notion, that we can manifest what we need into our lives simply by expressing it clearly and being receptive, it humbly reminded me of just where I am at: I may have some exposure and knowledge around this topic but there is definitely a great deal missing from my repertoire. Undoubtedly, there stands a foundation of knowledge-seeking far more in-depth than I had imagined, living underground, out of sight from modern science. It wouldn’t be the first field I’ve known to exist off-the-grid; the science of psychedelic medicine, now a boomingly loud, futuristic domain of science and wellness, was first popular in the 1950s and 1960s before being pushed underground, out of the public eye, due largely to eccentric counter-culturalist Timothy Leary and President Nixon’s infamous war on drugs, where it operated and continued to develop for a good portion of four decades.⁴ Passionate and devoted people always find a way to continue their craft, especially when their interests align with the betterment of masses, such as in the case of treating alcoholics with LSD.

“In this book is written of the Sephiroth and the Paths, of Spirits and Conjurations; of Gods, Spheres, Planes, and many other things which may or may not exist.

It is immaterial whether they exist or not. By doing certain things certain results follow; students are most earnestly warned against attributing objective reality or philosophical validity to any of them.”

Aleister Crowley

Overall, the field of spirituality is richly invigorating, deeply challenging and far-from-limited to the specific topics discussed in this post. I find myself perplexing over the ominous warning from Aleister Crowley, famed English occultist; spirituality is the ultimate scientific Pandora’s box—unexpected or undesirable results may spring from a devoted mechanistic study.⁵ I cannot let this deter me, however; I am gratefully endowed with memories too bizarre to deny, festering within me, begging for a rational explanation. Systemic analyses of spiritual concepts would undeniably prove themselves useful on a societal level, also, as dire sickness and general malaise continues to reveal itself at all levels of class structure. If we as a species could find a way to understand and harness the particulars of the energy body, for example, the applications in healing practices would be enormous. To do so first requires just a shred of empirical evidence to support the very existence of the so-called subtle-energies, an endeavor perhaps of utmost importance.

Upon conclusion of this article, I found myself wandering around Chapters eying the astounding quantity of spiritual-type books that are available for purchase in the modern day. The chosen sections of the store containing these books were intriguing—many of the books that could be classified as spiritual by merit of this post were found under headings such as new-age, occult, parapsychology, supernatural and controversial knowledge, while an entirely different section of books was to be found under faith & spirituality. It dawned on me that spirituality is not only challenging to define, but something that may mean very different things to different groups of people. Linguistics is a peculiar thing, and these categories are ultimately just placeholders for experiences and practices, but the discrepancy struck me nevertheless, and left me wanting to ask the reader: what does spirituality mean to you?

1. Although I have heard of a difference between spirit and soul, for simplicity here we will use the terms interchangeably.

2. Note that there is a logical gap between the given definition of “spirit” and the derived definition of “spirituality”—the details are largely outside the scope of this essay and will perhaps be elaborated upon in a subsequent piece. Non-physical existence can be thought of as anything outside the realm of what we commonly know about reality; e.g., soul, energy body, God, astral field, synchronicities, angels, demons, parallel realities, manifestation, karma, and other hypothetical new-age concepts.

3. Following strictly the definition of the word “empirical”, which means “originating in or based on observation or experience” (M.W.), a person’s internal experience is trivially empirical to them; however, this is not necessarily so from an outsider standpoint. What a person says is raw empirical data but what they infer based on their words may not be.

4. For a detailed history of psychedelic medicine, I highly recommend Michael Pollan’s book: How to Change Your Mind: What the New Science of Psychedelics Teaches Us About Consciousness, Dying, Addiction, Depression, and Transcendence (Penguin Press 2018).

5. Quote taken from The Black Arts: An Absorbing Account of Witchcraft, Demonology, Astrology, and Other Mystical Practices Throughout the Ages by Richard Cavendish (Tarcher Perigee 2017); originally from Aleister Crowley’s Magick in Theory and Practice (Dover 1976).