What do y'all think about spirituality?

Question

So, I think that spirituality can be pretty cool, and is maybe really important.

The ideas of connection, patience, irrationality, being small, knowing that *everything* is big, the manipulation of the mind and body, ritual, celebration, magic.... It seems like these things could have an anarchistic power to them that appeals to me when they are not organized, capitalized, or recuperated, and that rejecting spirituality along with god is too easy of a solution.

That said, the "peaceful transcendence, man" route is very gross as is the religious dogmatism / utopianism of many anarchist texts.

Embodied spiritual nihilism anyone?

*edited to include tags*

Comments

Can I just comment that I really appreciate the questions you've posted on this site? Like, a lot?

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i really like this question, all of the answers, and the discussions following them....and i hope to add something to the conversation (other than this) soon... :)

edited:

i wonder what waters shark.heart swims in these days...i see some good stuff (meaning i like it... :)  ) on here from them, and would enjoy some more. edited again: thanks, dot for the reply (which i don't see now, but nevertheless....)

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“. . .spirituality can be pretty cool, and is maybe really important.           The ideas of connection”

I was once a Christian and was very active in the church, but I slowly over time, very slowly embraced doubt and I am now an atheist/agnostic, whatever. I like/love anarchist thought/philosophy, but I am not an anarchist except in a “I wish that world existed” way, and maybe one day it will.

But on the thought of spirituality. What comes to mind is what happens when I really connect with another. Like I have two older sons with families and when we all get together and everyone is getting along so well—laughing and carrying on—I sense an awe more than as some others describe as they feel when alone with nature—which I also feel, as the example was given, when I am alone watching a slow moving herd of elk.

But to be in a place where everything seems to have worked out—in the chaos of life. I mean, I don't think I have ever really know what I was doing as a family man, but I get to experience a “connectedness” which is so awesome—as a really lucky guy! Too, the same can be said when being in the right spot at the right time to see some rare thing in nature which blows you away.

Maybe there is something out there. And whatever it is gets some kind of weird entertainment watching us. But I really “don't believe” there is. But to be alive and experience the awesomeness of connectedness with family or nature or the universe, to me, inspires thankfulness or a great gratitude for being a participant, and that thankfulness coming from experiencing it is the “spirituality” I feel.

Answer 1

Some anarchists would agree. In particular a lot of anarcho-primitivists hold some sort of land-based spirituality as integral to their understanding of wildness. Not going to speak for them, though I hope they (and others with spiritual beliefs) will speak up.

I am not spiritual. There is no "something more" than my physical self, and the reactions of electricity water and carbon working in whatever way they work. That said, I have taken some things from Buddhist thought that I find really resonant with my particular perspective on anarchism - the idea that everything is passing, the idea of attachment and striving as a root (they would say the root) of suffering. I don't believe however in an ability to transcend this, and in terms of the idea of eliminating suffering, take a much more literal approach.

As far as rituals and magic, I know a lot of anarchists who like that stuff. I can't even pretend to get it, and find no use in it, but as long as they don't make me do it or get their spirit all over me (or try to insist that I have a some sort of spirituality/spirit/soul/whatever) I don't give a shit what they think.

Don't know if this amounts to a real answer, I might covert it to a comment in a bit.

Answer 2

I have friends who are into astrology, tarot cards, and witchcraft. Though I have no interest in these things, I admit that I am jealous of their ability to be spiritual, to have the capacity and drive to see the world in a way that isn’t dominated by cold, scientific rationality. I think this inability for many people stems from being in a position of detached observation of the natural world, where ones’ relationship with it is of judgment and analysis. The drive to understand the mechanics of how everything works, an unnecessary phenomenon that is only very recent in human history, comes from a position 'above' it all. Being in that space kills any wonder one has for it. Also in my case I think it has something to do with me consuming lots of television, movies, and video games as a kid, which probably killed my imagination.

To answer your question: I don’t have any spirituality of my own. But I yearn for one, and see the system around me as facilitating that inability.

Comments

"The drive to understand the mechanics of how everything works, an unnecessary phenomenon that is only very recent in human history, comes from a position 'above' it all. Being in that space kills any wonder one has for it."
It's a common misconception. My experience is that the more people are interested in understanding what's going on around them the more wonder they find whereas people who talk about how mysterious the world is and that you cannot understand anything tend to take most things they encounter for granted - yeah, they're baffled by the big things and enchanted by the trivial, but they mostly miss the beauty of the clouds, a flower, trees, a prism, their own chaotic desk, a shattered concrete slab, an idea, a paradox...
Basically they miss almost everything besides what shoved into their faces.

Answer 3

I have to echo the previous answers in that I don't really have rituals or magic or what have you, and the few times I have tried I have found the practice weird and awkward.

That said, I do think a lot these days about how vast and incomprehensible space, time, and other stuff is. I realize that nothing I do or think or feel matters, and that also in some way nothing I oppose matters either. which makes me feel much better about everything. now, to be an anarchist from a place of feeling better and unimportant!

Both previous answers mentioned science in their different ways. I wonder if knowing that there is nothing outside ourselves or that it is possible to be a detached observer or whatever is a way of avoiding the idea that there are unknowable things outside of ourselves, but not the kind that notices our feelings or endorses monarchy or offers redemption.

also back to the spiritual practice thing - doing weird and cheesy and intentional shit eventually loses its ingenuity if people i like, or at least appreciate, are around.

I have some contradictory feelings here. Or maybe i can sum it up this way; it is very fun to pretend that things are important, but not very much fun to believe yourself.

Comments

"doing weird and cheesy and intentional shit eventually loses its ingenuity if people i like, or at least appreciate, are around."

I feel like this is either worded strangely or I'm just interpreting it wrong. Are you saying that having people you appreciate be around makes the shit /less/ interesting? It's the word "ingenuity" that I'm tripping over - I feel like you were intending to imply that it loses its sense of, say, disingenuousness, or insincerity, or contrivance. As in, the opposite of genuine.

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Sorry for the lack of clarity, in person I rely heavily on hand gestures and the over use of "dya know what i mean?".

I was saying that ritual and ceremony feel awkward for me, but if I do them with people I know well and value, then it becomes less awkward.

Why I said it....I guess my point was that while there is no other world to *reciprocally* exchange connection with in a meaningful way, there are other people, and while spiritual concepts might be useful for the individual, spiritual practice is maybe more of a group actiivity?

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That's totally what I thought you were saying, it was just the wording threw me off because it led to the opposite interpretation.

And I think I agree. I can only understand individual spiritual practice to a certain extent: it can be a mythology and lend a sense of importance to your individual activities (I feel like CrimethInc has experimented with this concept a bit), and/or it can be an excuse for what might be called meditation or reflection in secular terms.

Social practices are always a huge deal and spirituality is a big example of that. For all the completely fucked ideologies that propagate thanks to churches, it seems like they know how to create a sense of commonality and connectedness in their parishioners.

Maybe that is an important point? I'm not sure.

Answer 4

to roughly paraphrase and gently modify some content from 'how to destroy this world' (which i think offers some interesting thoughts about the relationship between magic and negation)...it is said sometimes that "magic is the knowledge of true names,” but perhaps instead magic is the 'true knowledge of naming,' that is, recognizing the violence and failure inherent to signification, and "if naming produces our named selves, then magic is an undoing of those selves."
I think a universal gooey sentimental woo-ness is to be avoided, and to honor the body as a place of wisdom without falling into psuedo-science and anthropology, basically to maintain an anti-science but also to think critically about that which we would make sacred.
In place of a judeo-christian morality play about the forces of good and evil sparring on the terrestrial theater, we can perhaps take a look at which powers and people align themselves with order, and which align themselves with chaos, and choose chaos!

Comments

where do you find this book you were talking about, "how to destroy this world?"

MAYBE IT WILL GIVE ME MAGIC POWERS!

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i bumped this answer because i'd also like to know about the book/essay/zine that puddles mentioned, "how to destroy this world"....anyone out there know of it, or where to find it?  

i also still like the question.

Answer 5

First, like Rice Boy, I like this question, although I'd frame it differently perhaps. When I comtemplate spirituality there has long ceased to be a 'what' to find. I don't sense 'spirit' as an object, a noun, and most definitely not a reified 'who' (i.e. Yahweh) or any pantheon of 'whos'. For me, this may be better asked in terms of 'where,' 'when' and 'how,' senses of relation and movement, rather than destinations, states, particular beings.

There were times in my life I rejected the word 'spirit' altogether precisely due to the manner in which people speak. And yet, living got the better of me. Etymologically speaking, 'spirit' means breath. But, do you sense, with this meaning, a normalizing sleight of hand taking over? There's no such thing as breath. We breathe. To me, this became important. I'll do this in a couple of parts.
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I breathe in sharply (gasp if you will) in those places and moments where I'm moved by the world, by that which I do not, and really can not, control.  I speak. I sob in sadness. Laugh heartily. I pant when running. I blow quiet words of gratitude upon gusts of smoke when I sense that urge welling up. I shout angrily and gaily depending on how, when and where I may be. Once in a great while I snore, at least I'm told I do.
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Another view:  as a living body the world is imbued in sense. It cannot be otherwise. As a body I'm in con-texture, conditioned and contoured with that which we call 'world.' I'd even say as that which we call 'world' since I cannot separate from 'world.' And some of you may have noticed that 'I' tend to use the word 'sense' rather than 'meaning.' This reflects my refusal to conceptually separate my self and world, a human, all-too-human practice in the dismal. I realize, however, I differ from every other unique instance (my way of undermining 'thing' lingo) in-the-world.

Some of those instances are not places and moments I desire to live. They may demand that I live and sense their way. They may demand I fall into parameters for a 'how' of living which foils my particular 'wave' or 'bandwidth,' so to speak, and thus immiserates me in a way of living not at all my own. I find these places, their demands, already miserable: hating their own conditions and too fearful to move on. And there are places, from where I can see presently, that I do wish to go, and 'hows' I'd like to experiment and experience. And this place of which 'I am' feels better than ever!
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This shortish, more poetic answer (perhaps 'bad' poetry even) cannot convey that which I sense or how I 'breathe,' but I simply desire to share some of this place and the senses herein with others as best I may. :)

Comments

I feel a sense of mystification, jealousy, and laughter at a lot of the stuff you write on here...it's stuff like this that once again reminds me of how often people (including myself, unfortunately) just seem to recycle the same types sayings and jingoisms both within their mind and what they express outwardly, throughout their whole lives...it irritates me i guess at how easy it is to get "stuck"

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rs666, from what i sense, this jingoism is often so loud and so difficult to turn from. the melodies of one's living is drowned out in a cacophony of blame, fault-finding, shame, guilt, so-called positivity, demagoguery, and so on (aka 'miserabilism'). it's nearly impossible to not get sucked into it, at least periodically, but i feel it's important in those moments, for me anyway, to visualize those ill-feelings as eddying centripetally toward me, rather than it centrifugally spinning from me. mutual acquiescence is a powerful, and enveloping, normalizing feature of mass-'society.' i don't believe it can be faced head-on all too often.

in short, this is the stuff i have neither the intention nor desire to call 'my own,' cuz it ain't my shit to begin with and i look for ways to undermine, break, loosen, and pry away its grip where and when i'm able and encourage others where and when i'm able...

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i appreciate your response, ill try to envision it as something coming towards instead of as something i need to control (which i guess is what you mean when you say, ".....to visualize those ill-feelings as eddying centripetally toward me, rather than it centrifugally spinning from me?")

 

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while it's no 'solution' (as if we need more of them) within a power structure which always blames those affected, and those affected blame themselves, at least it allows one to get the monkey of self-blame off one's own back for a time.

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Not to sound rude, but I have no idea of what you wrote is suppose to mean. It kinda reads like poetry and/or metaphors, which I suck at deciphering. Could you maybe dumb it down or explain it to me like I'm a 6 year old?

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human AF did "dumb it down" in their last paragraph. also, if you look up centripetally and centrifugally, i believe every other word is in common usage?

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lol!

just because words are in common usage, does not mean they are being used commonly. if i get what human is saying, it isn't that there are unknown words, it is the manner in which they are being put together which can be challenging to follow if one's mind does not tend to work in some particular way.

i sometimes have the same issue, with certain kinds of writing.

when i read af's answer, my first thought was: "wow. i'm not sure i even understand what the fuck af is saying, but it sure reads beautifully! i like it even if i don't understand it."

obviously we all have different ways of thinking, and particularly, processing words that come from others. some level of comprehension may be attainable with some effort, but at that point it becomes kind of like language interpretation - is the author's real intent/idea coming through clearly?

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all;

as i've said elsewhere, english sucks as a language in so many ways. having become far too 'thingy.' and with the continued erosion of verbs discarded in favor of an ever higher pile-o-nouns i feel the language will become further entrenched in object-language, binaries, and far too much work and not enough play.

i have no intention to obscure, but that which i'm indicating may be, alas, unspeakable in english, much less 'plain english,' reductionism and/or deductive reasoning. more than likely this may prove difficult in any language, especially online, where we are out of touch. but, for me to try and package my answer in neater conceptual boxes would be to try and bound that which remains fluid despite my best attempts in so-called clarity. this would also give the absurd impression the world's far less messy, and far less living, than i perceive.

if anyone has a specific question, though, shoot! i'll answer in good faith in the best way i'm able.

edited to add: more rational language misses where i desire to point completely and yet, more poetic language fails to resonate with some. the former relies on word/meaning; the latter's possibility is sensed in the very senses aroused.

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is the author's real intent/idea coming through clearly?

lol

my riposte: no one's ideas ever come through clearly. all we have is what we get from the words we receive. ie the audience brings half the interaction (if not more).

saying "common usage"  was my shorthand for those who read must also work at understanding, and sometimes we get more out of something that is difficult than we do out of what seems clear.

and i say this as a fucking lazy ass reader, btw.

but it was just my .02, when i should be doing other things than lurking 101.

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"no one's ideas ever come through clearly. all we have is what we get from the words we receive. ie the audience brings half the interaction (if not more)."

true enough. esp that last sentence. 

but it is still my strong desire for my words to be understood as i intend them, and to understand the words of others as they are intended. which doesn't preclude futher analysis or interpretation. some folks value clarity more than others, obviously.

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af: the limitations of language are numerous. using language in this hyper-mediated form makes it even more difficult, for me. yet, i bet if you and i were sitting around a fire having this discussion, your poetic phrasings (etc) would be easily explained, if explanation were necessary.

sometimes i really want to stop using the internet.

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@dot, I actually understood what AF meant in their comment that stated "visualize those ill-feelings as eddying centripetally toward me, rather than it centrifugally spinning from me." For his answer, it's not that I don't understand the words AF is using, it's the way it's worded together that made it hard for me to understand as f@ noted. I have difficulties figuring out poetry and/or metaphor types of writing and AF's answers reads like that to me.

My understanding of AF's answer is AF breathes, rather than breaths because breaths wouldn't make any sense. Breath is a noun and breathe is a verb. Breath doesn't exist, which I can agree with, but that's about it I understood, other than AF breathes. So, i guess AF is implying spirit doesn't exist and something about AF breathes?

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i understand af's answer as saying that we can sense (or experience, or understand) in ways other than the well-documented five (sight, sound, touch, smell, taste).

and if af doesn't mean that, well....i do. :)

edited to add:

i sense in myriad ways beyond the five, and if i had to lump all of those experiences and ways of sensing into a single label, i might use the word "spiritual" (as opposed to the physicality implied by the five), but i tend not to because of all the other connotations of the word as described in many of the answers here.

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ba@, you're getting warmer to be sure. the word 'sense' has been used historically for perceiving and understanding.

a. 'I sense that rock'

b. 'In what sense?' or 'that makes sense'

'a' experiences, 'b' interprets. or in another way 'a' feels, 'b' analyzes/values/conceptualizes.

this is part of why i didn't use 'meaning' in my answer, this notion of separation, which maintains in my view anyway, a subtle mind/body dualism. i'm attempting to use 'sense' in the fullest...sense...possible to evoke imagery of this simultaneity in, and as, fundamental to living.

once in a great while sense is used like this, as in 'can you get a sense of that room?' this is a tad closer to my answer.

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even though i understood the gist of what AmorFati was saying with all the reading I've been doing in this particular type of anarchist thought, I also accept that I could never fully understand what he's talking about because he's trying to describe things that go on in his own (perhaps CRAZY) mind

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rs666 - i guess this means you won't be PM-ing me again asking my opinion on certain works? just as well. i won't be answering.

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af, i intended to use "sense" by way of your "a" description. "b" for me comes after that, if at all (i experience, then i might interpret it into words or some other medium, or attempt to connect that experience with other experiences, etc.).

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ba@- do you see 'a' and 'b' as wholly separable? i cannot. i do see varying degrees in 'both,' but i can't see that, as a living body, sense as 'sensation' and sense as 'meaning' separable except in terms of abstractions.

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af, no, i don't see them as separable, but i see them as different aspects.

for example, i've had some extremely vivid dreams, where i "sensed" many things. in one instance, i saw a person i knew who died (in the dream) of a heart attack, and i previously did not "know" about this via other "senses" (no one told me about it, i hadn't read about him dying, etc.). later upon awakening (about 6 days after that night), i found out through some friends that he died under nearly the same circumstances of my dream - the place, his activity at the time, and so on - and that he died the day just prior to the night of my dream.

so, i would say i experienced his death during my dream, without question, and the meaning and understanding of that continued via other senses - talking and thinking about it. i doubt that i could disconnect the various aspects of that experience, but i see distinctions among them.

edited to add:

so perhaps one could call my dream "spiritual", and the interpreting of it later as not spiritual, but do you mean that you don't need to categorize one as spiritual and one as not?

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ah ok. yes. i would say we're basically on the same page then. my a/b example was for simplicity more than anything, but limited of course. i've had similar experiences which have left me doubtless of other ways we sense. i guess more of where i was going with my comments on 'sense' was that the word is used as an either/or; as in either sense(s) or 'meaning.' whereas for me, there's meaning in sensing, sensing is meaning. does that make sense? :-) 

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i'd like to comment on your edit a bit later. gotta go for now...

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i think similarly in that i don't need to separate "sensing" and "meaning" into an either/or context.....although, i still think of those terms having distinct differences, even while happening simultaneously. i can get totally absorbed while playing the piano (sensing through my fingers and ears and feelings...), although i still have an awareness of interpreting (the chord progressions, a few thoughts that pop into my head as i play...).

i guess you could say that sensing and meaning happen simultaneously, or interactively with one another, and that at times i have more awareness of one aspect or the other.

edit: i look forward to you other comments, af. enjoy your day....

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AmorFati: I didn't mean "crazy" as an insult, i was both joking and i personally wish i was a little more crazy than i am, unfortunately i think im a little too logical and straightforward as most people on this question have been expressing...sometimes i feel like a rather bland person

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from your writings, rs666, i wouldn't describe you as bland. :)

i also think we probably all come off different in cyberspace, or through writing, than we do when we talk face to face, or if we just sat around together, or any other context....

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rs666: oh, ok. i really couldn't read the joke.

i don't perceive you as bland either. this topic is difficult precisely because it isn't suited to logic or straightforwardness. many folks write such queries off altogether because of this.

there have been times in my life i've approached these questions in a far more straightforward, logical way, and times i've written them off. but, i found i was crazier, increasingly atomized, angrier and very hard on myself. i came to permit myself to feel those aspects of living i'd put off, partly because, like funky@ and i talked about, the very cynical commodification preying upon those who feel there's more to life than 'things' (junk, concepts, and junk-concepts). also, the straight line is how we're taught to wrestle through with all that which contradicts, opposes and potentially undermines that model line.

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ba@, actually you sang it well and i definitely resonate with the song. perhaps i'm overly cautious in that once 'spiritual' topics arise there's often that shift between thingification and utter spook-qua-spook. i do see sense as meaningful, yet in a pre-cognitive way, whereas what most people indicate in using 'meaning' ceases to be participation, relation and play and becomes a conceptual something out-there or in our so-called heart-of-hearts; complete immersion in fantasizing.

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I suppose i take things too literally. Actually, I know I do, and probably why I'm stuck on the breathe thing, even though I'm pretty sure you don't literally mean breathe. This stuff is outta my league and goes right over my head, I guess. :)

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thanks, AmorFati.

Answer 6

I consider a spirituality to mean finding what I can only describe at this time as an intangible a weight in a moment, or an entity. This could mean playing in the bathtub with water and exploring the beautiful absurdity of the intricacies of my perceived existence. This extends to encouraging myself to see character (essence might be an ultimate goal however, is so far removed from my perception at the moment) in other living non human beings. Sometimes I attempt "rituals" with close friends which often ends up being cheesy and akward,  we make it up ourselves and have no fucking clue how to go about it.  But I think self definition often is awkward, and ultimately when I am looking at my bud in the forest on solstice slipping into a pond I think to myself that I wouldn't rather be anywhere else but there.

I am thinking about taking on meditation, maybe not just as a response for a spiritualism but also alleviating depression and to facilitate a being present in the moment thing.

That being said these are just things that I have created for my own being, and when I have spent time being around witches or people who are into the occult I tend to find it contrived and disingenuous.  It appears to be more of a scene or a subculture to me than a meaningful creativity.

Comments

'and when I have spent time being around witches or people who are into the occult I tend to find it contrived and disingenuous.'

as a former member now long (self-) removed from a (SF Bay based) occult organization, i can vouch for that. i always felt somehow...inauthentic?...during ritual. the priesthood found it all even more empty.

then again, years later i found out ritual ain't where i needed to go anyway, and it definitely wasn't occulted by way of anything mystical in the first place.

Answer 7

i guess for me, the word "spirituality" carries so much baggage that i have no interest in using it. between the religious connotations and the new age shallowness that i associate with the term (with good reason), it just kind of rubs me the wrong way. (yeah, i know, i should "make it my own"...)

but if i let all that go...

the only concept of "spirituality" that interests me is the unexplainable, indescribable connectedness (that's the best term i can come up with) that i can feel with various things i come across in my life.

sometimes, i feel that with another human being. more often, i feel it when there are no other humans around. when i am, to use a cliche, "communing with nature".

sitting among the old growth redwoods. camped out at black sands beach (or any of numerous other rugged coastal places along the lost coast and north). sitting in the massive arroyo near where i live, under an old juniper tree. watching a herd (?) of elk walk by a hundred yards away, in a blowing snowstorm. bonding with the (once feral) dogs that live with me. etc etc etc...

the question of whether what i think of as "spirituality" implies some "sprit" or "soul" or other non-physical entity of sorts, is irrelevant to me. i simply don't care. does my being - that which i experience as me/i - include anything that is not purely of the physical/material world? maybe. maybe not. it seems like a false dichotomy anyway. 

are feelings/intuitions of the physical/material world? does it fucking matter?

edit: i purposely avoided talking about rituals, which for many are a huge part of their "spirituality". but don't mind if i do. 

i hate rituals, for the most part. at least to the extent that they tend to be repetitive and predictable. i realize that term can span quite a range of activities, so i'm trying not to broad-brush.  so many people i have known that call themselves "spiritual" are so completely bound to their spiritual rituals that to me it seems way anti-liberatory. but that's me. 

Comments

"so many people i have known that call themselves "spiritual" are so completely bound to their spiritual rituals that to me it seems way anti-liberatory."

not too mention many self-proclaimed spiritual people are boorish, boring and all too ready to answer the demands of the Holy Pocket Book. very pleasing answer, btw.

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thx, af.

and yes, you bring up a hugely relevant point about the monetary aspects of "spirituality" (and related rituals).  i live in one of those areas where new age spirituality is a predominant presence, and making money from it is one of the primary sources of income for many in this area. white male shamans are a dime a dozen around here (but $1500 for a weekend). which is interesting, because there are more than enough indian shamans to saturate the market. ;-)