Somebody in one of the religion threads asked me a while back what I meant by "man's spirit" or "spirituality." Certainly a valid question, given what all is out there. Below are the first ten entries in my book on the subject, recently written, the labor intensive (though a labor of love) investigation of which is what predisposed me so bad to tilt when some dogmatic religiotard just insists, "Oh, Jesus is the answer to that too. Drink his effing blood, because we are medieval here."

My intent is not to pursue a big thread on it, simply to do what I said I would, put some of the take-off tenets in a post. So the following are the first 10 or so of 600+ in the book, which are preceded by I think a 31-point definition of "spirituality."

Anyway, here are the first thoughts excerpted from the book:


1. I’ll paraphrase Thomas Paine’s “my own mind is my church.”

My own mind is my spirituality. And according to the mind’s nature, so are the requirements and details of that spirituality. I forego the supernatural. My spirituality is in the nature of human consciousness.

2. “The investigation of the meaning of words is the beginning of education.” -- Antisthenes

This principle does not exclude the word “spirituality.”

3. Without connection to oneself nothing holds fulfillment for man. Self-alienation and dissociation are the deadening banes in human consciousness, and connection - to self, life and others - is profoundly quickening of the spirit.

4. There is nothing supernatural in my spirit or my spirituality: just the nature of human consciousness and the study of that which fulfills man’s spirit and that which depletes it.

5. Nietzsche’s demand to love this life and to get out of an afterlife mindset is well-heeded by the version of spirituality I am espousing.

6. Rational spirituality can be seen as a reclaiming of meaning from supernatural realms back into natural ones.

7. The literalizing of myth into dogma is where a lot of religion comes from. Gnosis on the other hand - the gaining of knowledge about actual spiritual truths - is a path of wisdom.

8. Axiom: human consciousness contains options from which a natural, rational, empirical spirituality arise.

9. I became spiritual the moment I turned inward toward my true nature. “Know thyself” is not an academic pursuit as much as one of the spirit. Spirit is of the psyche, not of the netherworld.

10. I am beginning to see that a spiritual journey does not consist of chasing deities, but of coming home to oneself.

None of these tell me what "mans spirit" or "spirituality" are. They are just sentences containing the word spirit or spirituality without actually telling me what those words mean

Spirituality, then, is in part a measure of how deeply we are experiencing our life. Human beings, unlike horses and dogs, can, and do by the billions, dissociate from and become alienated from and strangers to to their own experience and their own life force. How much joy we are capable of - and the flip side of that, how much pain we are willing to allow in our consciousness without repressing and evading it - is an expression of our spirit (spirit being not anything supernatural but simply our vitality level).

spirit: the seat of emotion, the seat of one's character, the seat of one's feeling of vitality.

Look in the dictionary and in books of psychology instead of magic books to define the word. Stop acting like you don't know what it means to describe someone as spirited as opposed to dispirited.

"The spirituality of man is in his 'alienation quotient.' We are meant to experience our life, not negate or evade it. And when our prodigious intelligence and abstract capacity contravenes or hijacks us away from the truth of our being, that's alienation." Spirituality investigates these issues toward a heightened understanding of what enhances and what impoverishes man psychologically, emotionally, as pertains directly to his spirit(s).

"A religion or spirituality that seeks the extraordinary, the magical, the miraculous - is very much lost. They want 'out' of the human experience. Rational spirituality is of this world, no otherworldly. It is about the human experience, not some imagined replacement for it."

"Our spirit, our animation, when naturally connected to self is richly fulfilled, while that of the alienated is haunted by deadness and emptiness. Not supernaturally fulfilled, naturally fulfilled. Not supernaturally haunted, naturally haunted."

"Man is the only animal who refuses what he is." -- Albert Camus. "Self-alienation is unique to human consciousness and this is a key aspect of human nature, and thus an essential emphasis in psychology and spirituality."

"Being spirited is about having vitality, enthusiasm, about being non-impoverished emotionally. Why cede the term to religion?'

"Spirituality is about plunging into the great mystery of being human. Dogma is actually about lack of faith, about lack of trust, about fear, about "I will cling to these answers to everything (talking snakes, drinking blood) because I am afraid not to."

"Man alone can lie about what is happening within him, and become unpresent to the moment and his truth. This is his loss of spirituality ... meaning, the loss of experiencing his life."

I'm coming across all these quotes while looking for a key one. Some female atheist scientist published a long list of what she finds richly rewarding in life, as an argument against some stupid religious comment that, as an atheist, she has nothing to live for. In her list, what "the spirit of man" ... and I want to see if, in the list she presented, all very much "of this world," anyone would argue that "the spirit of man" is not of this world? As in: the spirit of man, and of mankind, doesn't even exist, practically or abstractly, because it has been so conflated with the religious stuff.

Anyway her point was, in reply to life not having any meaning without a god, that all of the following was very meaningful for her: literature, beauty, art, curiosity, knowledge, science, love, a bunch of other stuff, and the human spirit.

No sign of sacrifices or drinking blood on her list. Today isn't a good day to get anyone to consider reassessing, but if your list of meaning includes DRINKING BLOOD because it says to in a thousands year old book, then those who lack reasonable meaning might not be on the humanist side.

"Mankind's spirituality runs along these lines: As long as we are in an alienated posture to our own experience, the character that comes out of us in insincerity, hypocrisy, callousness, shallowness, greed, self-blindness, emptiness, loneliness. When we are in touch with and know ourselves, the character that comes out of us is sincerity, compassion, generosity, vision, fulfillment, empathy, togetherness. Mankind is the only creature that disowns his experience, thus offsetting the experiencer itself, leaving himself in a no-man's land that is out of contact with their humanity, resulting in depravity, a debasing of their human potentials. All this comes under the spirituality of man."

11 minutes of brilliance by Jung that makes the link between human nature and spirituality ... a rational, natural, empirical spirituality.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CP1YOeNnZac&t=18s

Spirituality is man's sentimentality towards the world around him.

Time for a short break:

When I grow up, as I must you know
I’ll go wherever I want to go.
I’ll go to the circus, three nights straight.
I’ll sleep in the morning and stay up late.
No more hand-me-downs will I ever use.
And I’ll walk in a mud hole with brand new shoes.
I’ll have turkey and ice cream for every meal.
And I’ll squeal just as loud as I want to squeal.
I’ll have two dogs and three white mice
And let them all eat with me.
Won’t that be nice? – Helen Kizer

Now back to your regular programming....

Spirituality when it isn't woo is apparently something like standing in a room and talking to yourself.

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I was asked to post it, genius. Therein are the parameters of a human consciousness based spirituality, which does not involve drinking blood to work miracles. Know when to be embarrassed: like right now.

Heheh. I'm pretty sure 12 posts in a row is the embarrassing part.

Nope. I simply did that in lieu of making one super long post, as is recommended in all such forums. Nice try.

Please show me this recommendation.

???? Like really?

Uh, yeah. Really.

If someone doesn't know that drinking blood for magic is embarrassing and splitting long material into short posts is reasonable and often advised in forums, then it is what it is. Nobody needs to name it.