New Way of practicing Old Beliefs

[Angrboda]

Leonardo17- Agreed: I also have to add that actually I don’t know that much. All that I am saying is that all spiritual people need to demonstrate at least some of the dynamics that I have been trying to describe here. It does not matter if they are old school or new school or that they belong to this religious denomination or that religious denomination. One thing that turns me immediately away from anyone in an instant if it’s not present for instance is if they are not humble. 

Still, I would respect anyone making a serious effort to be more thoughtful of others, more peaceful, more grateful and appreciative. Those are difficult things.

So you wouldn't consider Randian objectivism or Nietzschean ethics a spiritual path?

[Belacqua]

Still, I would respect anyone making a serious effort to be more thoughtful of others, more peaceful, more grateful and appreciative. Those are difficult things.

So you wouldn't consider Randian objectivism or Nietzschean ethics a spiritual path?

Good question. I'm not sure. 

I guess I've been associating spirituality with unselfishness, but maybe there are different kinds of spirit. 

Could you make an argument (even for the sake of argument) as to why those things are spiritual?

[The Grand Nudger]

Spirituality is the politics of religion.

[Angrboda]

So you wouldn't consider Randian objectivism or Nietzschean ethics a spiritual path?

Good question. I'm not sure. 

I guess I've been associating spirituality with unselfishness, but maybe there are different kinds of spirit. 

Could you make an argument (even for the sake of argument) as to why those things are spiritual?

I think it's an open question that interrogates what we mean by spirituality. There are many Randian objectivists for whom Rand's system is religious dogma.

If one doesn't like those, then what about Scientology. It seems the ostensible goal of Scientology is to fine-tune the mind / spirit for optimum flourishing. Stated that way, what is the goal of unselfish spiritualities?

[Belacqua]

I think it's an open question that interrogates what we mean by spirituality. 

Yep, I think that's what it comes down to. We answer the questions when we define the word.

First I'd say we could make a distinction between the ethical meaning and the ontological meaning. 

So ethical spiritual vs. material would be about what you value in your life. Do you want to be a good person or do you want good stuff. 

The ontological approach would claim that spirit is a separate thing from matter. People who believe this might go for life-after-death or something like that. Their practices for living spiritually might be the same as those of ethically spiritual people, but they would see it as grounded differently.

So far I've been thinking of the former more ethical meaning. I think that a strict scientist who believes in ontological materialism could still be spiritual in the sense of wanting to be a good person first and foremost. This would mean that the choices he made in life would be determined by what is best for other people and the world. 

(On the old Amazon forums there was a very spiritual lady who swore by meditation and several new-age kind of practices. It turned out that she worked making high-tech guidance systems for the weapons industry. So personally I felt that her spirituality was fake -- perhaps a way of assuaging guilt. But I'm sure she meant what she said.) 

If one doesn't like those, then what about Scientology.  It seems the ostensible goal of Scientology is to fine-tune the mind / spirit for optimum flourishing.  

Here I guess it depends on what you think of Scientology. Someone who thinks it's real will hold that he's improving his spirit. More skeptical people might well think he's a dupe who's giving away his money to unscrupulous people. 

I lean more toward the second option, but I've never really looked into Scientology.

[Angrboda]

If one doesn't like those, then what about Scientology.  It seems the ostensible goal of Scientology is to fine-tune the mind / spirit for optimum flourishing.  

Here I guess it depends on what you think of Scientology. Someone who thinks it's real will hold that he's improving his spirit. More skeptical people might well think he's a dupe who's giving away his money to unscrupulous people. 

I lean more toward the second option, but I've never really looked into Scientology.

Is that fundamentally different from any other religion?

[Angrboda]

Mindfulness is a type of Buddhist-based meditation in which you focus on being aware of what you're sensing, thinking, and feeling in the present moment.

The first recorded evidence for this, found in India, is over 1,500 years old. The Dharmatrāta Meditation Scripture, written by a community of Buddhists, describes various practices and includes reports of symptoms of depression and anxiety that can occur after meditation.

It also details cognitive anomalies associated with episodes of psychosis, dissociation, and depersonalisation (when people feel the world is "unreal").

In the past eight years there has been a surge of scientific research in this area. These studies show that adverse effects are not rare.

A 2022 study, using a sample of 953 people in the US who meditated regularly, showed that over 10 percent of participants experienced adverse effects which had a significant negative impact on their everyday life and lasted for at least one month.

According to a review of over 40 years of research that was published in 2020, the most common adverse effects are anxiety and depression. These are followed by psychotic or delusional symptoms, dissociation or depersonalisation, and fear or terror.

Research also found that adverse effects can happen to people without previous mental health problems, to those who have only had a moderate exposure to meditation and they can lead to long-lasting symptoms.

The western world has also had evidence about these adverse effects for a long time.

In 1976, Arnold Lazarus, a key figure in the cognitive-behavioural science movement, said that meditation, when used indiscriminately, could induce "serious psychiatric problems such as depression, agitation, and even schizophrenic decompensation".

There is evidence that mindfulness can benefit people's wellbeing. The problem is that mindfulness coaches, videos, apps and books rarely warn people about the potential adverse effects.

Meditation And Mindfulness Can Have a Dark Side That We Don't Talk About

[Belacqua]

Here I guess it depends on what you think of Scientology. Someone who thinks it's real will hold that he's improving his spirit. More skeptical people might well think he's a dupe who's giving away his money to unscrupulous people. 

I lean more toward the second option, but I've never really looked into Scientology.

Is that fundamentally different from any other religion?

Good point!

So let's take (temporarily, tentatively) the definition of spirituality to be "a value system which emphasizes first and foremost efforts to be more grateful, appreciative, aware of and connected to other life in the world, and humble about one's place in the world." 

Then any religion (or ideology, or political commitment) which met this definition would be spiritual. 

And we all know that sometimes religion does the opposite. It has been known to make people less connected to people unlike themselves, and prouder about their own group. So when it does those things it's unspiritual and bad. Ideologies and passionately-held commitments can have such effects. 

But I recognize that I've worked up a definition of spirituality here which is different from how many people use the word.

[The Grand Nudger]

"Bad spirituality" is still spirituality. The politics of religion becoming plainly apparent in that list. That's one possible value system we might find, but there are more..and alot of them, even in the development of what we might consider to be paragon candidate ideologies...arose from martial cultures and were very much used as pretext for eliminating barbarous tribes. Such was the case for jainism, for example.

[Alan V]

I recognize that I've worked up a definition of spirituality here which is different from how many people use the word.

Per Wikipedia:

"There is no single, widely agreed-upon definition of spirituality. Surveys of the definition of the term, as used in scholarly research, show a broad range of definitions with limited overlap. A survey of reviews by McCarroll, each dealing with the topic of spirituality, gave twenty-seven explicit definitions among which 'there was little agreement'. This causes some difficulty in trying to study spirituality systematically; i.e., it impedes both understanding and the capacity to communicate findings in a meaningful fashion."

This is why I typically don't use the word. It's too vague, so you have to define it before you can discuss it.

So let's take (temporarily, tentatively) the definition of spirituality to be "a value system which emphasizes first and foremost efforts to be more grateful, appreciative, aware of and connected to other life in the world, and humble about one's place in the world." 

You are defining spirituality as attempting to overcome or offset one's own subjectivities. In that sense, it is about struggling to be more honest, no God or system required.