I studied and fell in love with philosophy in college and, throughout my life, I have written philosophies to help me (and sometimes other folks) make sense of a line of work or an area of life, and, thereby, to formulate and undertake the best actions that I could.
Now, in a later phase of my life, I am having time to reflect again on the big questions and write out relatively developed versions of my answers. To that end, a couple of months back I finished a book which I am calling Spiritual Realism: An Exploration of the Philosophy. It completed the trilogy that I began with In Search of a Revelation: An Essay in Spiritual Philosophy and continued with Arete: At Work on the Project of the Human Potential Movement.
Spiritual Realism returns to consider the same territory that I explored at the conclusion of In Search of a Revelation, where I laid out an initial spiritual philosophy, Spiritual Democracy. I summarized that philosophy this way:
Grounded in the reality that we all inhabit a living conscious Universe, we can all take the journey to find inner knowledge, attain the goal of that knowledge, come back and transform ourselves, and then take action for the benefit of our own lives, the life of our species, and the life of the Earth.
If you want to find out about the spiritual experiences out of which my spiritual philosophies have grown, take a look at In Search of a Revelation, available on Amazon. In Spiritual Realism I have returned to these topics to formulate what I learned putting my earlier spiritual philosophy into action, along with what I discovered in my continuing study of philosophy and of various esoteric disciplines and in my ongoing meditation practice.
Because publishing is a tough business right now and publishing another book on Amazon is too much work, I am going to use this essay and at least 4 more subsequent essays that I put up on the Planetary Philosophy website to present the heart of a Philosophy of Spiritual Realism. This will be my next series of essays, following the 10 essays that I have used to present a Philosophy of Consciousness.
Embracing Spiritual Realism
All traditional peoples I am familiar with experience and interact with a Spiritual Dimension of reality and have done so over the millennia. Eighty per cent of humanity currently are followers of one religion or another and engage with the Spiritual Dimension of life, mediated by their different Faiths.
In addition to the 27% of U.S. adults who consider themselves spiritual but not religious in a Pew Research Center study, 54% of the adult U.S. population consider themselves religious, leaving only 18% that do not recognize the existence of a Spiritual Dimension.
And yet, probably because of the popularity and success of orthodox science and the bad behavior of various religions and religious leaders over the centuries, those of us who recognize the reality of the Spiritual Dimension frequently find ourselves on the defensive and often times we behave defensively.
However, the Materialist Philosophy of orthodox science has arrived at a philosophical dead end and the sins of some people of Faith should not be used to reject the reality of the Spiritual Dimension. So, therefore, right here, right now, I assert that the Spiritual Dimension is real. And, I embrace an emerging Philosophy of Spiritual Realism that recognizes the validity of spiritual experience and that provides guidance for how to live and work in this context.
What you will find in these essays is where I have gotten so far in formulating a Philosophy of Spiritual Realism.
My Approach to Philosophy
I follow Alfred North Whitehead in understanding philosophy as a process of formulating a set of basic assumptions and then exploring the relationships among those assumptions as well as their ability to make sense out some aspects of reality, to orient the acquisition of knowledge, and, optimally, to guide and evaluate actions.
However, for me, it’s not a linear process. When I set out to explore an area of thought, I begin with a few general ideas to use to initiate the process, but then the writing becomes a form of action research. I often don’t know what will come or where I will wind up.
As we shall see as we explore the Philosophy of Spiritual Realism together, each moment of my typing, each word that I say in my mind to guide my typing, comes from and is guided by an intelligence that transcends that moment (hopefully, based on quite of bit of work, a Higher Self).
In writing, I am exploring what that intelligence knows and wants to communicate through my body. Once I formulate a complete thought, or perhaps a series of complete thoughts, I can look at what I produced from the perspective of my Whiteheadian understanding of philosophy and see what I have and edit and fine tune it so that it fits with what has gone before and what comes after.
But the act of writing is an act of deep research. The writing doubles as a way to communicate the results of that research to my future self, hopefully in a way that can guide my own understanding and action, and as a way to communicate the results to you as well.
My Rationale for Writing Spiritual Realism
I wrote Spiritual Realism for four main reasons.
- The concept of Spiritual Realism expresses a deep truth – the spiritual domain is, in fact, real and should be treated so.
- My thinking has evolved and deepened, since I wrote the concluding essay, Spiritual Democracy, in my first book, In Search of a Revelation. I feel a need to provide an integrated formulation of where I am now as a guide for my understanding of myself, my world, and my approach to taking action.
- I believe that there is a constituency for a Philosophy of Spiritual Realism. As I said, in 2021 the Pew Research Center found that 27% of U.S. adults identify as spiritual but not religious. This number has been steadily increasing in recent years, up from 22% in 2014. There is a sense in which this is a constituency in search of a philosophy and Spiritual Realism could be a version of that philosophy.
- And, I believe that Spiritual Realism can make an important contribution to our collective understanding of our world, our time, and what we need to do.
A Look Ahead
The last 4 essays in my Philosophy of Consciousness series on this website used the Philosophy of Spiritual Realism, so now I recognize that I better take a step back and provide an explicit formulation of the Philosophy of Spiritual Realism. Reciprocally, the Philosophy of Spiritual Realism draws on my Philosophy of Consciousness so you may at some point want to check out that philosophy as well if you haven’t already.
In the next Spiritual Realism essay after this introduction, I will present some of the work of Professor William A. Tiller, whose thought gave me the core insight of Spiritual Realism. In the third essay, I will present some of the thinking of Rupert Sheldrake, who, for me, has provided the key to putting the Philosophy of Spiritual Realism into action. In the fourth essay, I will locate Spiritual Realism within the context of the history of philosophy and provide a succinct formulation of the philosophy. And, finally (for now at least), in the fifth essay, I will present some of the ways a Philosophy of Spiritual Realism can be put into practice.
In various places, I have included some spiritual/psychological practices in this series of essays to demonstrate the spiritual/psychological technology that emerges from a Philosophy of Spiritual Realism and to remind myself to keep practicing. However, you may find them helpful as well.
