Over time I have found myself using the word ‘spiritual’ less and less in my work and life outside of it.
One reason for this is that the word by itself doesn’t explain much to many people. Both sceptics and those who simply don’t resonate with the word will ask what exactly ‘spiritual’ means. A second and not unrelated reason is that the term has come to carry a great deal of baggage and unhelpful connotations, seeming performative on one hand and inapplicable on the other. It leaves out much of what meaningful adult development entails.
Wikipedia says about spirituality that it “refers to matters related to the spirit or soul, often concerning religious beliefs and values, as well as deep feelings and experiences beyond the physical world.”
It’s interesting that even in an explanation of spirituality it couldn’t leave out matter.
Matters beyond the physical at least. Non-matter matters, if you like.
I don’t agree that we ought to consider certain aspects of existence or our minds as somehow not related to spirit. Irrespective of whether ‘spiritual’ is the right word to capture what it’s trying to capture, it surely isn’t today a suitable catch-all for representing human development in its ostensibly highest form.
What else might we throw out along with it? Freedom? Truth? Undesirable emotions? Not sounding very spiritual now. No, surely for something to be truly spiritual it must have a place for every aspect of existence, and acknowledge the rightful place of everything.
In my work I have defined spirituality as: an interest in aligning oneself with ‘what is,’ beyond the self-image. It is built on the innate understanding that there is more to ourselves and existence than our immediate experience suggests, and it involves an openness to the notion of, and interaction with, the unconscious mind.
But often I use the term ‘self-knowledge’ instead. For starters, developing self-knowledge is more descriptive of what spirituality, if it is to mean anything, really entails. Secondly, anyone can understand some of what is meant by self-knowledge, regardless of how interested they are in ‘spirituality,’ and probably use it to help their development in meaningful ways even if they do not identify as ‘spiritual.’
In truth though, self-knowledge is no less spiritual at essence than what many spiritualists would presume. Everything we encounter is in some way an expression of and mediated by the self. Maybe it removes some of the perceived mystique, but what’s unspiritual about that. I’ll settle for self-knowledge over ‘looking spiritual’ any day.
Robert Johnson in Owning Your Shadow argues that the Western Christian cross is often depicted with the lower arm elongated as a compensation to the otherworldly loftiness of ‘spirituality.’ The Greek and Eastern Orthodox churches on the other hand use an equilateral cross. Having lived in both regions I think it’s fair to say that spiritual inflation is far more common in the west and among individuals of a western background.
The cross is essentially a four point mandala, representing four modalities of consciousness. The crucified Christ symbolises the holding of the tension of opposites; enduring tension to the point of transformation, reborn a new synthesis. Surely we cannot in the west overlook the dominant symbolism of our own origin story, or reasonably argue that Christ isn’t a symbol of spirituality in the true sense of the word. Our symbol of spirituality itself is a meeting of four points; two pairs of opposites.
In ancient wisdom these four modalities correspond to will, feeling, intellect and sensation. In personality type terms, there are the four cognitive functions: intuition, feeling, thinking and sensation.
In short, ‘spiritual’ in the English language has come to be conflated with intuitive and to a lesser extent feeling. Or at the very least with the mere image and adornments that hint at it, even if there’s little real insight or feeling capacity there. Whereas in truth, intuition is no more ‘spiritual’ in itself than intellect or even sensation.
There are some perfectly understandable reasons for this conflation in the day and age in which we live. Rationality and materialism being the paradigms of our time have pushed intuition and feeling into the cultural shadow, which have naturally become associated with uniqueness and deeper truths.
Then there’s the typological bias—the fact that intuitive and feeling types dominate psychology and spiritual communities, and are defining the space in terms of how they consciously show up.
Lastly, because experiences of the unconscious are closed off to much of the western world or not normally spoken about, there’s often an assumption of specialness when they occur. Even though the unconscious carries instinct and sensation just as readily as it delivers intuition. Intuition by nature comes from somewhere beyond conscious control and is the most mysterious function, but having a permeable connection to the unconscious is not the same as having insight, wisdom or knowing what to make of the encounter when it occurs. And having an openness to the unconscious can just as easily mean being open to unconscious, untapped feeling, sensation and capacity for rational thought.
For a community that elevates intuition and feeling but suppresses intellect and materiality, these repressed aspects must return as rigidity dressed as openness, intellectual dishonesty posturing as spiritual insight, and material concerns around status dressed as discernment and maps of progress. Serving power without realising and calling it good is the primary way in which shadow shows up in our world. So obvious and yet unseen, and that’s one way you know it’s shadow.
Beyond a point this movement becomes more about denying existence than embracing or creating it. Hence why shadow is fundamentally a moral issue far more than it is a question of any particular quality or trait. The ultimate denial of necessary existence outside of oneself is what ultimately leads to evil.
What a shocker it would be to have it revealed first-hand that all this time the elevation of intuition and spiritual personae was just a product of our own contemporary biases, coupled with unconscious urges for power.
The realisation of truth and self-knowledge are not the product of any one of these aspects of existence in themselves, but of their encounter, interaction and ultimate synthesis. For, say, an intuitive feeler, meaningful development unfolds not only through a focus on intuition and feeling, but through a reconciliation with intellect, rationality, sensation and the material world.
Intuitive is not the same as spiritual. And in turn the garments of intuition are not intuition. Inflation of the intuitive (or any other) kind is at best a half (or really a quarter) posturing as a whole, and as such isn’t ‘true’ intuition at all. To say nothing of whether any function is being used with responsibility and empathy, or conversely in the service of power and control. True spirituality must have a place for everything, whilst also recognising the unfolding of expression into higher order realisation of something implicit.
As always in shadow work and individuation, the real path forward hangs out in the most unseen, ironic and yet most right-under-your-nose places. Rarely in precisely the thing that others say needs to be dropped.
Can you be spiritual without identifying as it? Without looking like it? Can you drop the need to be spiritual in any way whatsoever?
Following spirituality to its own logical end means dropping spirituality. Doing shadow work by its own implication means dropping ideas around shadow work.
The most ‘spiritual’ thing ever might be to stop being spiritual; the most ‘shadow work’ thing ever might be to stop doing shadow work.
The most effective thing you can do might be to stop trying to be effective;
the most loving thing might be to stop being loving;
the most masculine to stop being masculine;
the most feminine to stop being feminine;
at least your current idea of it, bringing you closer to the thing in itself.
