What Does Spiritual Mean?

william kent

william kent

Well-known member
kumar said:
Version, how does it make you feel that those experiences you described didnt have a “mystical and ineffable” flavour.
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Conflicted. I'd quite like to experience something like that in some respects, but I'd be worried about turning into a crackpot.
 
K

kumar

Well-known member
version said:
Conflicted. I'd quite like to experience something like that in some respects, but I'd be worried about turning into a crackpot.
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I understand but thats a bit like saying ooh i'd like to start exercising but i'm worried i'll get too buff
 
william kent

william kent

Well-known member
I remember being very intimidated by The Bible at one point due to worrying that if I read it I might actually believe it.
 
K

kumar

Well-known member
The main bit of advice I remember my dad giving me was when we were in town i was about 7 and we walked past the scientologists giving passers by personality tests, he looked very grave all of a sudden and said, son, never speak to those people, they have tricks which will get in your head even if you don't want them to, so needless to say i have visited them several times since.

have you got round to The Bible? i havent yet but i had a lot of the cool God's Word ® translation flyers you find on the bus on my teenage bedroom wall.
 
william kent

william kent

Well-known member
kumar said:
The main bit of advice I remember my dad giving me was when we were in town i was about 7 and we walked past the scientologists giving passers by personality tests, he looked very grave all of a sudden and said, son, never speak to those people, they have tricks which will get in your head even if you don't want them to, so needless to say i have visited them several times since.
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I was talking about this a while back. I just can't work out what they do to people to convince them of it. There's a guy in Louis Theroux's doc who claims to have spent 50k on books and stuff.
 
S

sadmanbarty

Well-known member
version said:
This is what's happened to the term 'spiritual', imo.. It's been diluted and whittled down into something you stick in your Insta bio when you go through a yoga phase, buy a few 'exotic' rugs and stick crystals on your shelf.
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i'm convinved you've had spiritual experiences, but you're squeemish about admitting as much because of the connotations of the word "spiritual".

its such a central component of human cognition. it'd be strange if you were missing it. especially given how interconnected you mind is.
 
S

sadmanbarty

Well-known member
neuroscientists have ostensibly created a machine that makes people feel god, or at the very least induces religious experiences.

so there's no contradiction being an atheist and experiencing the "spiritual" as an emotional thing and a state of mind. you may not point to spirits as the cause, but you nonetheless can tap into the same cognitive state that religious texts and so forth are working within.
 
william kent

william kent

Well-known member
The only thing I can think of that comes close to what I think other people are talking about when they refer to this stuff is walking home in the snow on acid and feeling like I was plugged into everything and it was all sort of humming. I wasn't overcome with euphoria or anything like that though and I didn't think of anything divine, it just seemed cool and I enjoyed it then went to sleep.
 
shiels

shiels

_
kumar said:
one thing i would be curious to find out is whether many problematic old anthropologists factored in the possibility of piss taking or ironic detachment when studying the spiritual practices of certain indigenous cultures. maybe there would have been lots of people who had a similarly mundane appreciation of “interconnectedness”, who had more of a sarcastic relationship with the spirits. Sincerity might not be the best mode for communicating with them.
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I like this. Anthropology will always have problems with overinterpretation but especially with something as contextual as humour.

Also the solemnity of spiritual or religious chat put me off when I was younger. Catholic mass is an oppressively dull, guilt riddenexperience. And some of the best insights I’ve had through my life have been hilarious. There’s a certain cathartic perspective where your everyday anxieties, the futility, it’s all just a joke, and the release can feel spiritual.
 
S

sadmanbarty

Well-known member
every version post on this thread is brilliant.

"in that moment i felt that my spirit ascended from out of my physical body and i was transported back 2000 years ago. i manifest once more in the material plane, this time as christ. i was on the crucifix, but i felt no angst or pain, but rather elation and ecstacy. the shimmering hand of god descended from heaven and reached into my heart, lifting me to the heaven where i surrendered all knowledge of myself.

but it weren't spiritual or nothing. just a bit bants"
 
Corpsey

Corpsey

bandz ahoy
It's like when you denied being a thrill seeker and then told us about shagging a woman in front of a stadium audience.
 
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