In Genuine spirituality in fiction, part 2, we looked at secular or “denatured” spirituality, which often diminishes the authentically spiritual aspects to the point where what’s left is only human psychology and materialism.
The absence of the “alternate reality” (as noted in the quote from Experiencing Spirituality in part 2) leaves one on that fragile emotional plane as discussed in Emotion, “Inpletion,” and Devotion, part 2. When devotion—the aspiration toward the divine—has been stripped away, one’s only hope of finding a semblance of inner peace (or “inpletion,” in a broader sense), is through some form of therapy. I think this is why I’ve heard adroitly non-religious people state that everyone needs a therapist, which does have a certain logic when you’ve taken God out of the picture.
Such denatured spirituality, in short, is very limited and limiting. Although it allows one to identify as a virtuous person without the churchy stuff, it doesn’t allow for a higher power of any kind to lift one above the psychological or emotional plane. And this is why so many titles on those lists of “spiritual” books, as mentioned in part 1, contain no genuine spirituality.
Fortunately, though, for all the flaws of this approach, any kind of sincere focus on spirituality, even a secular spirituality, will ultimately bear fruit. Psychological inspiration and upliftment are still inspiration and upliftment, and such an upward directional movement of energy will eventually lead one to higher levels of inspiration. Human nature is fundamentally spiritual, and that nature will inevitably reveal itself in due course.
A circuitous path back to genuine spirituality
An as example of this “eventually” and “inevitably,” let’s return to Octavia Butler’s Parable of the Sower and its “Earthseed” religion as discussed in part 2. A core tenet of that secular religion is that humankind’s destiny is to populate worlds beyond earth.1
Putting aside the religion’s lack of any greater reality or consciousness beyond the material and the psychological, this vision is at least an aspiration beyond the mundane realities of this earth and can help people deal with existential crises like the potential for nuclear war and now climate change. And many people do find inspiration in a “destiny among the stars”: it feels cosmic and expansive, mostly because it conjures up any number of spectacular, awe-inspiring images from the Hubble and James Webb space telescopes or other fanciful notions of space flight as we see in science fiction art.
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