Discussion
Chapter 13 in Thesis – On the Universal Meaning and Significance of Spirituality –
To understand a conclusion, one must not only understand the question it closes but also the questions it opens. Indeed, sometimes a conclusion opens up so many questions that it becomes an entire field of study. Here I like to think of Charles Darwin’s conclusion on the origin of species. For most of my life, I was only really aware of the questions and answers that opened up after his conclusion, such as why the polar bears are white and why humans look like monkeys. I only really became aware of the questions he closed when I first discussed the polar bear with a creationist, who laughed off the whole theory of evolution as a silly theory. This helped me realize that there was a big, closed question behind the questions and answers which populated my thoughts on life. By this, I do not mean to compare myself and my thesis with Charles Darwin and his thesis. Rather I mean to demonstrate the point that if an idea is successful, there may be a whole new world of questions and answers which lies ahead of it.
I do not know whether the ideas of this thesis will succeed. It is never easy to guess how one’s ideas will be received in advance. What I can say is that to my awareness, some of the major ideas I have formulated in this thesis are not common to mainstream scholarship and are therefore likely to be met with controversy. Many of these ideas are bold and they each may either fall or adapt in the face of the inevitable scrutiny to come. This is as it should be. This is what it means to attempt an understanding of the world as a part of a greater community of thinkers. In fact, it is precisely through the trust in the process of my greater community that I allow myself to think as boldly as I have. Trusting in the idea that mine is but a single step in a greater process, not the first nor the last. It is in this spirit that I intend to release this thesis and in this spirit I hope it will be received. Finally, and it is in this spirit, I will now proceed to give full justice to these ideas by imagining the implications of their potential success.
Of these many ideas, there are five major ones that I wish to underscore. These are the five ideas that I wish the reader to take away from the thesis and they will therefore be the ideas I will elaborate and discuss here. The first major idea is that (1) We are currently in the midst of a historical spiritual renaissance. The second is the idea that (2) Spirituality is based in a shared universal reality. The third is that (3) A universal understanding of spirituality can be grounded in terms of universal experience. The fourth is that (4) Spirituality fundamentally pertains to human experience of consciousness and its phenomena. The fifth idea is that (5) Spirituality is a vital dimension of human life. As discussed, each of these ideas are in part conclusions, yet in the event that they will succeed, they may become even greater beginnings. In this discussion, I will imagine these ideas as beginnings and thereby explore the implications of their potential success.
This discussion will not provide any references as it is based on conclusions which have been referenced both in the main text and in the conclusion. If the reader is interested, they may refer back to the conclusion for some of the primary references and to the text for the bulk of the references on which the discussion is based.
We are Currently in the Midst of a Historical Spiritual Renaissance
In this thesis I have argued that we are currently witnessing a spiritual renaissance in western culture. We saw that the decline of spirituality in the western mainstream had been met with three waves of spiritual counterculture which gave rise to this spiritual renaissance. They did this by giving new life to the traditional spirituality from around the world, from western esoteric history and from psychoactive plants. As a result, the west witnessed an unprecedented synthesis of spiritual influences. As these influences took root around the turn of the twentieth century, we saw that the countercultural rebellion stopped, the spiritual demographic outside religion accelerated and spiritual ideas became increasingly embraced by western science and health practice. This is among the central ideas I wish to put forth in this thesis. It is an idea which provides a historical context to the rise in spirituality in western science, health practice and culture, and it is an idea which may provide directions for the future. It is the future implications of this idea that I wish to discuss here. I would like to suggest three potential implications of the spiritual renaissance for the future. The first is spiritual reconciliation, the second is an increasing cultural prioritization of spirituality and the third is the possibility of reaching new heights of spiritual growth in the future, beyond anything previously known to history. In other words, this is the possibility that the spiritual renaissance may bring about the spiritual golden ages.
Spiritual Reconciliation
What do I mean by spiritual reconciliation? What I mean by spiritual reconciliation is the process whereby the spiritual influences from human history continue to meet, to inform one another and to synthesize as we have seen during the rise of the spiritual renaissance. We may increasingly learn the similarities of the spiritual traditions of the world as well as their unique differences. This reconciliation may be facilitated by unified theories, frameworks and bodies of spiritual knowledge. It may also inevitably bring about an increasingly universal understanding of spirituality as such an understanding would help reconcile the spirituality of different worldviews into unified integrations of spiritual knowledge. The unification may be capable of understanding the similarities and differences of these spiritual traditions in relation to one another. Based on such a universal understanding, the integrated and reconciled spiritual knowledge of human history may become available for everyone. People of all worldviews may draw on the collective spiritual experience of humanity and individual traditions may be informed and enriched by this reconciled knowledge. By extension, this unified spiritual knowledge may be interpreted by specific worldviews, allowing the carriers of these worldviews to draw on the collective human experience with spirituality. In short, I suggest that the implication of the continual meeting of spiritual influences may be an eventual complete spiritual reconciliation, in which all people and all traditions will have been enriched by all others. Henceforth from this point, the cultural evolution of spirituality will be based on the collective spiritual experience of human history.
Increased Cultural Prioritization of Spirituality
What do I mean by an increased cultural prioritization of spirituality? This implication is easier to understand. As spiritual influences continue to become understood and validated by science as we have seen in the cases of meditation and psychedelic research, and increasing amount of resources may likely be spent on spirituality, i.e. spirituality may become a bigger cultural priority. Organizations and professionals dealing with people may invest more in the spiritual lives of those that concern them, and people may generally spend more time, money and energy on spirituality in their personal life. The implications of this could be vast, and I will discuss this further later in the discussion.
Spiritual Growth
The third potential implication I would like to discuss, is the possibility of reaching new heights of spiritual growth in the future, or what may be thought of as the spiritual golden ages. Why might one think that? First of all, a reconciliation of the collective spiritual experience of humanity combined with an increased prioritization of spirituality may in themselves be reason enough to suspect that the best of spirituality may yet lie ahead. As I have mentioned, given a complete spiritual reconciliation, any further spiritual progress would be standing on the shoulders of the collective human experience. This is a lot. However, there is at least one other major reason which may imply a future spiritual golden age, and that is science and technology. History has shown us what science and technology is capable of when it turns its attention to something. When science looked at the smallest things in the universe, it found an effectively unlimited source of energy in the core of atoms, when science looked at the moon it managed to land people there and bring them back, when science looked at communication and information it eventually gave rise to computers and the internet. These are but a few examples of what science is capable of. So we may ask ourselves, what may be the spiritual equivalent of nuclear energy, moon landings and the internet? In other words, what might happen if science and technology turn their attention to spirituality? This is a question for another thesis or better yet, a science fiction book. For the purposes of this argument, it will suffice to say that what could happen may likely exceed anything previously known to the spiritual history of humanity. The innovations that may arise, could be to mindfulness, as the nuke was to the bow and arrow.
There are of course many other important potential implications which could be discussed, such as the effects on the mental health crisis and the climate crisis. However, I would like to focus on these three for this discussion. I will refer to these as (1) spiritual reconciliation (2) spiritual prioritization and (3) spiritual growth. As we will see, the other ideas I will put forward in this discussion will also likely be relevant for these implications and for the spiritual renaissance in general.
Spirituality is Based in a Shared Universal Reality
In this thesis I have argued that spirituality is not just a cultural relativity, it is based in universal human nature. In other words there is a shared universal reality underlying spirituality. I have argued that it is for this reason spirituality has appeared in all cultures and that it is for this reason we find so many common patterns in spirituality across cultures. For instance, we have seen that people have universally represented their spiritual reality in similar ways, that the spiritual realms of shamanism across the world share a fundamental infrastructure and that they use the same fundamental techniques for journeying into them. I have argued that the reason for these common patterns is that there is a shared universal reality underlying spirituality and I have also demonstrated the biological evidence for this shared universal reality in a later section. But what does it mean that there is a shared universal reality underlying spirituality and what are the implications?
To understand what this means I propose an analogy. In this analogy I will compare the spirituality of a culture with the technology of a culture. When it comes to the technology of a culture, we intuitively understand that it emerges from a universal reality shared by all humans, the reality of the physical world. The wheel works because of that reality, and the same is true of weapons, architecture ect. This means that if a foreign culture has developed a new and strange technology, then it is not only relevant to their cultural universe, it is relevant for everybody who shares the universal physical reality, including ourselves. If a foreign culture developed a strange technology, then they must therefore have understood something about that reality that we haven’t understood. Something which may be relevant for us. It is important to understand that we might understand the workings of this technology differently than their culture, and we might use the technology or the knowledge behind it for different purposes. One culture may ultimately understand their technology to work by god’s grace and another by the laws of physics. One culture may use nuclear technology for the purposes of war and another for the purposes of sustainability. Still, the fact that there is a universal basis behind it, makes the technology relevant for all of us across cultures. For this reason knowledge such as how to design effective spearheads, how to produce fertile soil and how to construct stable buildings will not respect cultural boundaries. It will spread across cultures because it is relevant across cultures. Even enemy cultures will want to get their hands on each other’s technology to take it apart and understand how it works. This is what it means for technology to be based on a shared universal reality, and this is also what it means for spirituality to be based on a shared universal reality. This is in my perspective the major implication of the idea that spirituality is based on a universal reality. Just as we would be interested in the technology of both our allies and enemies, so should we be interested in the spirituality of our allies and enemies. Just as we would be interested in the technology of cultures with different values and worldview than our own, so should we be interested in their spirituality. What may be the implications of this in the context of the spiritual renaissance?
We discussed that a major implication of the spiritual renaissance may be a spiritual reconciliation. The idea of a shared universal reality underlying spirituality has significant implications for such a reconciliation as it essentially validates it. If there were no universal reality underlying spirituality, then it would not be obvious that the spirituality of one culture would be relevant for another. This too can be understood by analogy. In this analogy I will compare spiritual traditions with board games which may or may not share an underlying reality. For me as a chess player, learning to play Go would not be very relevant for my chess skills, because these are fundamentally different games, operating on fundamentally different rules and on fundamentally different boards. In other words, the games of chess and go would not be very relevant for one another. However, if chess and go did share the fundamental rules and boards i.e. if there was a shared reality underlying these two games, then it might be a different story. In this case one could learn a lot about chess from playing go and vice versa. Therefore, that idea that there is a shared universal reality underlying the many spiritual traditions has great implications. It is based on this assumption that spiritual traditions become relevant for one another and therefore it is based on this assumption that a spiritual reconciliation across traditions may ought to take place. Based on this assumption, people will understand that the theory and practice of their spiritual tradition is relevant for everyone else, and that the theory and practice of all other spiritual traditions is relevant for them. In other words, the idea of a shared universal reality underlying spirituality is the fundamental rationale for a spiritual reconciliation and therefore has great implications for the spiritual renaissance.
To give a more concrete idea of why this may be the case we can consider all the questions that might open on the premise of a shared universal reality underlying spirituality. This premise may motivate many questions for many people on the path to the hypothetical complete spiritual reconciliation. The Buddhist may ask “where is my eightfold path in the context of all the paths which have been mapped by humanity?” and “where do these other paths lead and am I interested in any of what they have to offer? ” A person who is neither spiritual nor religious may inquire about his psychedelic experiences – “Where can I find my experience of boundless love in the spiritual traditions around the world, and how can they help me make it a bigger part of my life?” A philosopher may wonder, “how do the spiritual paths and experiences of spiritual traditions around the world relate to one another” and “What spiritual territory has been mapped by all cultures, what has only been discovered by a few, and what may yet be discovered for the first time?” A neuroscientist may wonder what the shamanic experience of shapeshifting may mean in the brain and a shaman may wonder what science of perception means for his spiritual journeys. These questions could be motivated by the idea of a universal reality underlying spirituality, and they would facilitate the process of spiritual reconciliation, which is a central part of the spiritual renaissance.
A Universal Understanding of Spirituality Can Be Grounded in Terms of Experience
In the section above we discussed the possibility of a spiritual reconciliation in which the spiritual knowledge of humanity would hypothetically be made available for everyone as part of the spiritual renaissance. As mentioned, this would require a unification of spiritual knowledge, which may be facilitated by unifying theories, frameworks and bodies of knowledge. However as discussed in the paper, there is a barrier to this process, a barrier of conflicting worldviews. That is, a person of one worldview may not be able to access the spiritual knowledge of another worldview because the worldview in which the spiritual knowledge is nested conflicts with his own. As an example, a therapist specializing in schizophrenia may not be able to access shamanic knowledge on how to deal with non-physical entities because the shamanic worldview conflicts with his own, yet the shamanic knowledge could potentially save his patients lives if he was able to. Under the assumption that spiritual knowledge is universally relevant, it is a problem if the universal access to this knowledge is hindered. In order to facilitate this access and the spiritual reconciliation in general there is therefore a need for a universal understanding of spirituality which is compatible across worldviews. An understanding which could bridge the many worldviews in which spiritual knowledge has evolved. The question is, what kind of understanding could do that?
I have suggested that the experiential paradigm could do that, or in the least it could be an important player in the reconciliation process. Using this approach, the knowledge of all spiritual traditions could be translated to universal experiences and made available to those who need it from other worldviews. Not everyone would accept the reality of ghosts and spirits capable of helping and haunting people, yet almost everyone might accept the reality of the experience of ghosts and spirits capable of causing consistent distress or support for people. Not everyone would accept the knowledge of how to deal with real ghosts and spirits “out there”, yet most people might accept the knowledge of how to deal with the experiential reality of these phenomena. In this way, spiritual phenomena and knowledge can be made available across worldviews by being translated from specific worldviews to terms of universal experience. This would allow the therapist specializing in schizophrenia to access shamanic knowledge even though his worldview conflicts with that of the shaman.
Should this idea prove successful the experiential approach may become a general paradigm for the universalization of spiritual knowledge and thus support the spiritual reconciliation process. The unified theories, frameworks and bodies of knowledge mentioned above might be formulated in terms of experience such that they could benefit as many people as possible. As discussed these unified theories, frameworks and bodies of knowledge could then be reinterpreted by specific worldviews to provide the subscribers of these worldviews with the integrated spiritual knowledge of humanity as interpreted within their own worldviews. Broadly speaking, if the idea of the experiential approach succeeds, it could help facilitate the reconciliation of spiritual knowledge, by bridging the worldview barrier.
Spirituality Fundamentally Pertains to Human Experience of Consciousness and its Phenomena
So far we have discussed the potential implications of a spiritual reconciliation and the experiential approach as facilitator of this reconciliation, in the context of a spiritual renaissance. So where does the process of reconciliation through the experiential approach begin? Arguably it begins with the attempt to understand spirituality in terms of universal experience. In this thesis I have attempted to contribute to this process through an experiential definition of spirituality. If successful, this definition might provide a cornerstone in the experiential understanding of spirituality in relation to which other spiritual terms may be understood. This means that a good definition could form the foundation of a unified understanding of spirituality. Such a definition would illuminate the essence of spirituality in terms of universal human experience, allowing people to identify spirituality in their own experience and in other people, and thereby allow spiritual knowledge from around the world to connect to their experience. Moreover, through the lens of such a definition, it would be clear in what experiences, people and cultures spirituality is present and to what extent. Therefore, a good experiential definition would also tell us what should and what should not be included in the spiritual reconciliation process. A good experiential definition of spirituality would thus be of essential importance for the reconciliation process and therefore for the spiritual renaissance. In this thesis, I attempted to propose such a definition.
The definition I proposed in the thesis was grounded in an experimental understanding of spirit. I proposed that spirit refers to the universal experience of a living conscious pattern of energy or in other words, the experience of consciousness and its phenomena. In other words, when one feels the phenomenon of consciousness changing and becoming salient, then one is having the experience which corresponds to the experience of spirit, or we might say, of spirit in motion. The only difference is that the experience of spirit is additionally layered with material which is worldview specific. The experience of changing and salient consciousness is stripped from such material to make it as universal as possible. From this foundational definition of spirit, I have then proposed that spirituality as a subject pertains to the experience of consciousness and its phenomena and that the practice of spirituality is about engaging and navigating this experience of consciousness and its phenomena. If this idea proves successful it could have big implications for our understanding of spirituality and for the reconciliation of spirituality.
This would imply that the spiritual dimension of culture refers to the part of a culture which relates to the understanding and navigation of the experience of consciousness and its phenomena. It would imply that different cultures may have explored different parts of the experience of consciousness depending on their values, their worldview and other factors. They may therefore also have acquired different knowledge of the experience of consciousness and different abilities with which to navigate it, some of which may be unique discoveries of particular cultures. A more intuitive way of putting this, is that just like the many cultures of history have explored and mastered different parts of the physical world in different ways, so have they explored and mastered different parts of the world of consciousness in different ways. Another implication of this, is that what we could stand to gain from a reconciliation of spiritual knowledge, is effectively a unification of the collective experience of humanity in the understanding and mastery of consciousness. What would this add to the picture of the spiritual renaissance?
As I have mentioned there is currently no consensus definition of spirituality. The definitions that do exist tend to identify spirituality with experience of either the sacred, s or transcendence. The consciousness definition would include all of the experiential territory of these definitions and extend beyond them. From the perspective of the consciousness definition these definitions may be viewed as highly valued spiritual experiences yet not the only ones. The consciousness definition would include all the ways in which the experience of consciousness has been understood and navigated in its definition of spirituality. As a result the reconciliation of spirituality will be much broader under this definition, and therefore the spiritual renaissance would be far wider in scope.
Before we had a clear definition of spirituality it may have been clear that there is a universal reality underlying spirituality and that it could be understood universally through experience, yet we would not have a clear idea of what this would mean. If the consciousness definition proves successful we do. This definition makes it very clear why spirituality has been such a central dimension of culture across history and why the spirituality of foreign cultures may be relevant for oneself. From this perspective, the spiritual traditions of the world have all uncovered truths and learned to navigate something as fundamental as the experience of consciousness, the same fundamental experience shared by everyone. It will be clear to anybody who wishes to understand their experiences of their own or others’ consciousness, that there may be a lot to learn from the spiritual traditions of the world.. Finally, this definition could give a picture of what a spiritual golden age in the future could mean. What this could mean, is a future state of culture, in which the unified experience of humanity with consciousness as well as the power of science and technology would combine to bring about new heights of the understanding and mastery of consciousness.
It is important to note that all these implications are true in the event that my definition of spirituality succeeds. However, it is also possible that my definition does not succeed. Here it is important for me to emphasize that even if my definition of spirituality will not prove successful, I still think it would be useful to promote a unification of the knowledge and practice pertaining to the experience of consciousness. In that case, the reconciliation would not occur under the banner of spirituality, but under another name such as “consciousness” or something else. The banner has its importance, but it is not the most important part. The most important part is that a reconciliation of the knowledge and practices pertaining to the experience of consciousness will take place. In short, even if my definition of spirituality fails, the golden ages described above could still become an implication of the spiritual renaissance, it would just be under a different name than the spiritual golden ages.
Spirituality is a Vital Dimension of Human Life
In the previous sections we discussed the idea of the spiritual renaissance, the idea of a unification of spiritual knowledge, the idea that this unification could be facilitated by the experiential approach and the idea the spiritual renaissance might potentially lead to the golden ages of the mastery of consciousness in the future. The definition discussed above and its implications for the spiritual renaissance might make the importance of spirituality obvious. Still, the idea that spirituality should be considered a vital dimension of human life is the answer of this thesis to its research question and therefore its main conclusion. There is a reason why I chose to ask a question that pertained directly to the importance of spirituality and not to any of the other ideas previously discussed in this discussion. The idea that spirituality is a vital dimension of human life may on its own hold the most significant implications of all the other ideas discussed. If successful, this idea on its own might motivate an investment in the understanding of the history and potential universal meaning of spirituality such as I have discussed above. However, the implications might stretch beyond this. I propose that the general implication of this idea is an increased prioritization of spirituality in general. Fundamentally this holds implications for any person and any organization concerned with human life. Should this idea succeed, then any person or organization that deals with people will have to consider the spiritual needs of these people, alongside the needs which they are already considering. According to this view, failing to consider the spiritual needs of human life would mean neglecting a vital human need. To give a more concrete idea of the implications of this idea, I will now go over a couple of examples of the personal and social implications, starting from the personal.
Implications for Personal Lives
The idea that spirituality is a vital dimension of human life may have very general implications for personal lives. As people become increasingly aware of the importance of their spiritual needs, they may fundamentally begin to invest more time, money and energy in their spiritual lives. This is similar to how people invest more time, money and energy in their health as they become more health conscious. People may increasingly seek to invest their time, money and energy in things like spiritual retreats, in creating spiritual livelihood and acquiring spiritual education ect. As a consequence, all this time money and energy will be diverted away from something else which may hold dramatic implications for the economy. In other words, any business that currently thrives on the time, money and energy of people may either have to adapt to the increasing spiritual prioritization of private people or take losses. In other words, this describes the potential bottom-up effects of increased prioritization of spirituality. How then will the top be affected by this idea? This takes us to the social implications.
Social Implications
On the most general level, any social group that deals with people will increasingly have to recognize the spiritual needs of those that concern them and invest accordingly. I will now go over a few examples.
Therapists, counselors and coaches may be the most obvious social groups to be influenced by this idea. For those who do not already emphasize the spiritual dimension in their practice, the idea of spirituality as a vital dimension of life would imply that they should.
Governments may also want to increase their investment in the spiritual needs of their citizens through education, culture and various other institutions. In fact, if spirituality becomes recognized as a vital human need, governments would increasingly be evaluated on their accommodation of these needs in the same way that they are being evaluated on their accommodation of other human needs such as occupation and well-being. More funding may be provided for research into spirituality and for relevant social entrepreneurs and social actors in general.
Private organizations, big and small, may also be incentivized to invest in the spiritual dimension of their employees and clients. If the wider public comes to believe that they have vital spiritual needs, organizations may need to accommodate these needs in order to attract applicants, clients and customers.
Architects and interior designers may also want to increase their emphasis on spiritual principles in their work and urban landscapes may increasingly facilitate the spiritual lives of its inhabitants.
The final and possibly the most important social sector I will mention is education. Again, if the public comes to believe that they and their children have vital spiritual needs, then educational institutions and the educational system in general will be incentivized to accommodate them. The spiritual health of children and students may be monitored and spirituality may become a part of the curriculum.
Overall these social investments in spirituality would also have top-down effects. As society invests more in the spiritual needs of its people, naturally personal lives will be affected, and it is therefore likely to cause an increased spiritual prioritization in personal lives. Where might this process of increased prioritization of spirituality lead? The ideas covered in this discussion could give us clues insofar as they will prove valid. From the perspective of these ideas, wherever this increased prioritization leads, it will lead to some kind of spiritual growth which we discussed as one of the three major implications of the spiritual renaissance. It is reasonable to think that as culture increases its prioritization of spirituality, this culture will experience spiritual growth. However, it might happen, this resulting spiritual growth will constitute a central dimension of the spiritual renaissance, and potentially contribute to the advent of a spiritual golden age. I will discuss this further in the big picture of the discussion below.
Review and Discussion
We have discussed the implications of five of the most central ideas which I would like to put forward with this thesis, (1) the idea that we are currently in the midst of a historical spiritual renaissance, (2) the idea that spirituality is based in a shared universal reality. (3) The idea that a universal understanding of spirituality can be grounded in terms of universal experience, (4) the idea that Spirituality fundamentally pertains to human experience of consciousness and its phenomena and (5) the idea that spirituality is a vital dimension of human life.
We discussed that the three main implications of the spiritual renaissance were spiritual reconciliation, increased prioritization of spirituality and spiritual growth towards a hypothetical spiritual golden age. We have then discussed the rest of the four ideas in the context of these implications. The idea of a shared universal reality underlying spirituality would imply a rationale for spiritual reconciliation. The idea that a universal understanding of spirituality can be grounded in terms of universal experience could provide a paradigm for this reconciliation. The idea that spirituality fundamentally pertains to the experience of consciousness could imply that this reconciliation would mean a reconciliation of the collective human experience with the experience of consciousness. The idea that spirituality is a vital dimension of human life could imply an increased personal and social prioritization of spirituality and to spiritual growth in culture.
All these implications can be viewed as the potential characteristics of the spiritual renaissance. The picture that forms is that over the course of history, humanity has explored and mastered different parts of the landscape of consciousness. During the spiritual renaissance this knowledge may become increasingly reconciled, combining the collective wisdom of humanity in single cultures. As this happens, the universal importance of spirituality for the purposes of understanding and mastering consciousness may become increasingly understood and spirituality may then become increasingly prioritized. As the collective wisdom of consciousness is made available to single cultures and spirituality becomes increasingly prioritized, we may witness an unprecedented growth of spirituality, i.e. in the understanding and mastery of consciousness. This growth may be further amplified through the influence of science and technology, potentially producing the spiritual equivalents of moon landings and nuclear energy. All in all this may bring about the spiritual golden ages. A time when consciousness will have been mastered by human culture to an unprecedented degree in conjunction with the technology of that future.
As I have mentioned, expanding this picture further will likely occur under the genre of science fiction. It is not my intention to explore the future of spirituality to any significant extent or detail. The intention here was to explore the potential future directions of spiritual history in broad strokes based on the trends we are seeing today and in the context of the major ideas of this thesis. More generally, the intention has been to place the ideas of this thesis in a historical context which can help shed some light on the future. Discussing the future is of course by its very nature speculative. In this case the speculation went something like this “where might the future go should the ideas of this thesis prove valid and successful?” As I have mentioned, it is my hope that these ideas along with the speculations of this discussion will be refined and adapted for the better by your feedback and for the product of this process to be as enlightening and useful as possible.
Author – Sagi Andersen