SPIRIT, SPIRITUALISM, AND SPIRITUALITY

As a non-dualistic scientist, I do not believe there is evidence for a supernatural world of spirits, ghosts, leprechauns, trolls, zombies, souls, gods, angels, genies, pixies, or bogeymen.  But I do believe there is something called “team spirit.”  It is the coordinated effort that a group of people feel when they accomplish something good through their supplementary talents. It is not a diffuse soul-like being that permeates each member of a team.  I think also of Dickens’s spirits of Christmas past, present, and future.  Are they triplets?  Are they a trinity of one spirit of Christmas, like a Catholic Trinity?  Is this the way that new religions form (there is no scriptural basis for the three Dickensian spirits)?  I am less convinced that there is a “spirit of the times.”  I have no objection to say a musician’s performance was spirited but I do not believe that attainment involved the musician’s possession by a supernatural musical spirit invading his or her brain.

              The term spiritualism was introduced in the nineteenth century to describe a movement that involved séances with table rapping, objects moved in darkened rooms, voices from the dead conjured up by a spiritualist leading the séance, or apparitions appearing and disappearing (luminescent figures appearing for brief moments).  Most of these were outright fraudulent staged productions that took in many intellectuals like Conan Doyle.  They were very popular in Great Britain and the United States from the mid nineteenth to early twentieth century.  Professional magicians like Houdini exposed these as fraudulent.  Those who believed they could converse with past ancestors thought they were studying the supernatural by scientific methods.  These were often the hand holding or table turning procedures alleged to bring the spirits into the séance.

              The term spirituality is more widespread and difficult to define.  It can be an “oversoul” similar to Ralph Waldo Emerson’s beliefs in his transcendental movement.  It verges on pantheism, with a sense of the holy or divine permeating the universe or individuals.  It is often associated with the sense of awe or wonder when people look at natural beauty such as the Grand Canyon or a vista from a mountain rest stop. At sea it can be an “oceanic” feeling when seeing nothing but a circular sea around the ship and clouds curved like they were painted on the rim of the inside of a clear glass bowl.  It is also associated with the feeling of reverence, communion, or peace that is evoked by a choir or by a sermon in religious services.  Many feel they are experiencing some contact with God.  Others settle for a sense of spirituality that takes them away from the ordinary secular likes and dislikes experienced each day.  I have rarely felt this at Unitarian-Universalist services.  I experience awe and thrill at the beauty found in nature.  I can be “transported” by great music, literature,  or art.  In my youth I read a lot of religious books to see what others liked about the religious experience and I once induced a state of satori in which my fingers felt fused with the universe through the brass gate of my elevator door while waiting to descend to pick up passengers at 217 Broadway in Manhattan.  The signal to move down quickly dispersed that moment of being at one with the universe.  I felt like Scrooge blaming it on an undigested bit of gruel.  In my case it was caused by saturation from reading the trance-like religious experiences of Sri Ramakrishna.

              Dualists try to compartmentalize the natural world and the supernatural world but it is a difficult thing for most scientists to do.  How do supernatural entities bring about natural objects like humans so that they can guide human behavior?  How do they perform miracles?  Few dualists believe that all their activities and experiences are creations of God or spirits or even their own souls.  It is a selective process and no doubt an attempt to inventory what is attributed to supernatural beings or forces and what are ordinary secular activities (like walking, dressing, eating) would vary from individual to individual.  Virtually all of my life has been an immersion in the material world and the emotional constructions of my brain.  I have rarely sought spiritual experiences and yet consider my life fulfilled, ethical, and worth living in the absence of the supernatural.