Romantic Spirituality

In my previous essay on Romantic politics, I looked at which political system was most attuned to the Romantic values of Truth, Beauty, Freedom, and Love. They say one should never discuss religion or politics. I've done politics so now it's time for religion.

The pursuit of Truth involves two branches of philosophy, metaphysics and epistemology, the question of the nature of existence and the question of knowledge. If I were to say the world is like this, then it is only reasonable to counter with "how do you know that?" In other words, "Prove it." You might say that Doubting Thomas is the patron saint of the truth-seeker.

When it comes to Objective Reality, it is important to keep an open mind. Having an open mind does not mean believing every notion that comes along. It means being open to the possibility of being wrong in the face of evidence and not just dismissing the facts because they do not sit well with our current belief system.

This requires a certain flexibility. If your belief system is too hard, then it is incapable of changing in light of new discoveries; and if it is too soft then it is a worthless mush that hardly counts as a belief system at all.

The entirety of our Subjective Reality rests on the foundation of belief. One thing we know about life is that it changes, therefore we need a belief system capable of changing and adapting, and yet still firm enough to provide structural support for our reality throughout the entire course of our existence. This is not as difficult as it seems.

A friend and I once stopped at a table set-up by a Buddhist looking for converts. My friend did all the talking and I only half-listened. As we left I said to my friend, "He used to be a fundamentalist Christian, didn't he?" "Yes, how did you know?" I answered, "Because he still talks like one". Our fundamental belief system is like a bookcase. Throughout the course of our lives we may change the books in the bookcase from Christian to Buddhist, but the bookcase remains the same. The bookcase represents our core, largely unconscious, beliefs.

We are creatures existing in three realities simultaneously. In the real world of the Objective Reality we are guided by our reason. In the perceived world of our unique Subjective Reality we are guided by our feelings. The third reality, the man-made Artificial Reality, on both the material and social levels, requires both faculties. The Objective Reality is a reality of thoughts and definitions, whereas the Subjective Reality is one of beliefs and meanings.

A belief is a thought with an emotional attachment. Now in a perfect world our thoughts guide our beliefs, but this is not usually the case. More often than not we tailor our thoughts around our beliefs. Why? Because beliefs go deep. They are the field on which your thoughts are played out; they create the context. This is the core, the essence, the source of the actions that define you, the causation behind your emotional responses to your thoughts, the progenitor of your unconscious values, and therefore the source of your drives, your loves, and your passions. There are beliefs and then there are BELIEFS. The former is just a little derivative of the latter.

When we come into the world we are possessed of our unique neuro-chemical make-up and genetic composition. This is Nature. From before we emerge from the womb we start analyzing reality to form our core belief system. Once in the world, a combination of Nature, Nurture, and Analysis takes over and within about five years the core is formed and buried. It is like a black hole. It is invisible to our consciousness and we only know of its existence because of all the lesser beliefs, values, thoughts, feelings, and actions revolving around it.

We may change our conscious beliefs many times over the course of our lives and with it change all that hinges on them, but the core will remain constant without a deliberate exercised effort to change it. Sometimes needs changing if the core beliefs are untrue.

Truth is simply that which is consistent with Reality. The real question when we ask, "What is truth?" is "what is the nature of reality?" The level of emotional intensity of your beliefs about reality does not make it true. Truth is objective and not subjective.

Therein lays the problem. The rational mind looks at Objective Reality and the emotional mind perceives the Subjective Reality. Concepts like proof and evidence are part of the rational, objective sphere, however the beliefs themselves are emotionally held regardless of proof. The only resolution is having a core belief system that allows the Subjective to conform to the Objective as much as conceptually possible. This is the path of Truth.

Someone once said that if God did not exist, then we would have to invent him. The implication here is that the human mind has an innate need for God, whatever form that takes. This is backed by neurologists who discovered the "God Spot" in the brain that is responsible for feelings associated with religious experiences. It is as if God made us with the capacity to know Him. However, the atheist would argue that existence of the God Spot is an evolutionary response to a hundred thousand years of human religious activity. And yet there it is and we have to play the cards we are dealt.

The origins of religion go back to fundamental issues of Life and Death. The Life question involves ancient man's attempts to understand and control the world in which he lived. The Death question came from the observation of once animated and alert people and things suddenly being devoid of consciousness. The body remains but the spark is gone. Where did the spark go?

The answers to the question of Life are the Nature Religions and the question of Death led to the Ancestor worship religions. Eventually both questions came together to form a central metaphysics based on gods, goddesses, other spiritual beings, and an afterlife or spirit world.

Pantheism probably started off as ancestor worship and over time the more powerful of the dead ancestors evolved in the consciousness of their followers into the gods who controlled the affairs of life, such as the sky, the lightning, the harvest, love, or whatever. They were probably once all mortals being from the dawn of time with a particular field of expertise who left their mark on society. From there the priests and storytellers took over.

One such god was a Canaanite deity called El, who was the father of all the gods, but most notably the father of Baal. According to legend, when Abraham came to Canaan from Mesopotamia he adopted the worship of El as the supreme and eventually the only true god. The name El actually translates as God. Abraham's decedents continued to worship El and the faith evolved over thousands of years into the modern day religions of Judaism, Christianity, and Islam.

What made this religion of El unique was that El was more than just a super-powered human. Myths of his divine exploits are rare if not completely forgotten. He was not seducing mortal women like the Greek gods or engaging in heroic battle. He was above all of that.

The name El translates as God because that is what He is – an all-powerful, all-knowing, ever-present father god who possesses a genuine concern for His people. He was not the petty, vindictive sort who would destroy your crops because you did not sacrifice enough to him. More importantly his laws were moral laws. With El worship, religion became more than just Life and Death. It became a moral path to salvation and an eventual union with the divine.

During the Reformation those breaking-away from the Catholic Church believed that the individual could interpret scripture for themselves without the need for a priest. A few hundred years later this freedom of thought led to questioning even the existence of God during the Enlightenment.

When we look to the Romantics who followed the Enlightenment we see a wide range of religious beliefs, from mainstream Christianity, to Neo-paganism, to Spiritualism, to Atheism. The modern Romantic may call on numerous predecessors to argue their particular religious leaning and claim it as Romantic. I however will look at the fundamentals and see which path has the best claim to the label Romantic.

The core of Romanticism is individualism, individual thought, individual feeling, and individual will. Consider the God Spot for a moment. This portion of the brain is responsible for our sense of spirituality and the emotions associated with it. This is not the Christianity Spot, or the Pagan Spot, or the Islam Spot. The human emotional response to spirituality does not differentiate. The positive emotional experiences of the Christian are no different from those of the Muslim or the Jew.

This class of emotion ranges from peace, to an eye-watering sense of being part of powers beyond us, to a sense of community. There are many religious people that do not or cannot discern between these ecstatic emotional states and the presence of the divine. For them the emotion is evidence of God's existence. Everything else is just justification.

Due to Nature, or Nurture, or varying degrees of both, we each have unique emotional responses. Yes, there are certain universals, but even these are open to variances in receptivity and intensity. The same holds true of religious stimuli. You might say that some people have a more developed God Spot than others. Such people may be called religious or even spiritual.

As for the Romantics, the chain of reasoning goes like this. Individual will relies on values (those things we act to gain or to keep) to guide action, and emotions are a response to either gaining or loosing values, either in reality or in the imagination, therefore emotions are a key aspect of the Romantic. This includes the emotions associated with religion, spirituality, and the God Spot.

Consider Percy Shelly for a moment. He was thrown out of Oxford University for handing out a tract promoting atheism and yet later in life he seemed to embrace paganism and spiritualism. Why? I reckon because he rejected the stale, well-worn, religious institutions but not the feelings of religion. So he sought stimulation on freer and more fertile ground.

On the subject of Spiritualism, I'll add that during the Romantic Era science was still relatively young. It was like a child looking into every corner of creation to see what it might find. This included spiritual matters. Machines were even built to detect ghosts. Science and mysticism seemingly went hand in hand. Spirit mediums used this Victorian passion for the unknown to dupe people and unwittingly opened-up a whole knew avenue of study.

After Harry Houdini's mother died, he went to a spiritualist to contact her. The medium gave a message from beyond that was laced with Christian imagery. Houdini was outraged. His mother had been a devout Jew, so there was no way this message was from her. Houdini then set about disproving the charlatans of his day which started a tradition of debunking religious experiences. Understanding and replicating the affects of religious experiences on the human mind has brought us a better understanding of the psychology of religion as well as the power of hypnosis, belief, and meditation.

When we look at Romanticism as the search for Truth, we are led down the path of objectivity, reason, and science. If we look at Romanticism as the pursuit of Love (which I define as the pursuit of values), then we are led down the path of subjectivity, feeling, and religion. Reason demands proof, but all that belief can offer is evidence led by feeling. The two seem mutually exclusive.

There is another challenge. Romanticism is also about Freedom, the liberty to act according to your will. Religion is not just about metaphysics, epistemology, and feelings. It is also about ethics. People with a core belief system grounded in religion cannot accept human morality without God. The word atheist means ungodly, and to be ungodly is synonymous with being immoral. This is why Romantics have always been associated with evil, because like Lucifer they have chosen to go their own way rather than obey the authoritarian dictates of God or His self-appointed officers on Earth.

Romantic ethics is another essay for another time. Suffice to say that I hold to the Aristotelian view that the moral is the rational. The right path is the one that promotes flourishing and that path can only be known through reason, and not feeling.

As for the apparent dilemma between reason and emotion in regards to religion, it is important to remember that emotions are an end in themselves. Feelings may give us a sense of our subjective world; intuition may be falsely interpreted as feelings; emotions may even serve as a catalyst to action. However, emotions are part of your unique Subjective Reality derived from your core belief system. They tell you the truth of that world, but that world is not the world. It's your world.

The Romantic must understand that emotions are a unique, personal response to the real or imagined reality and not a source of Truth. Therefore the Romantic may revel in the emotions born of religious stimuli in the same way he responds to other stimuli, such as a special experience, sexual encounters, a good movie, a piece of art, or a rock concert. What makes each of these things special is not the thing itself but the emotions they evoke.

Belief is a powerful force. The notions of the divine, shared communal beliefs, and the emotions religion evoke have provided a source of strength, mental discipline, morality, and comfort for billions of people over thousands of years. These are all very special things that come from a belief in the divine. Countless human evils may have been done in the name of religion, but likewise so have wonderful achievements.

I would not advocate abandoning the faith to anyone. I enjoy religious stories, art, and iconography. I like seeing, "In God We Trust" on a dollar. I see these religious sayings as having value. However, if I was to look forward into the future I would look towards a religion without the need for the divine.

I believe that as we learn how the mind works, employ psychological methods of self-improvement, and even incorporate the lessons learned from faiths that do not have any sort of "god" figure, such as certain Buddhist sects, that a new religion will develop. A religion based on reason without dispensing the emotions that drives us to improving ourselves and the world, and a religion that is flexible enough to change with new information and yet rigid enough to provide support.

I think that this religion of the Romantic exists, but only in fragments scattered across the intellectual landscape of human endeavour. I would like to believe that some of that is contained in my words. I am one of those people with a highly developed God Spot. So perhaps I am just looking for some means to stimulate it. After all, we all need something to believe in.

If a person believes in science as the only valid path to Truth or calls themselves an atheist the image of a sort of robotic, emotionless, Mr Spock comes to mind who lacks any sort of spirituality. And yet the non-deistic Buddhists as perceived as being spiritual.

If spirituality, as it is commonly perceived, is all in the mind, then doesn't it seem reasonable to find spirituality in the mind through meditation and self-hypnosis techniques rather than looking at some external source that cannot even be proven to exist? When it comes to aligning our core beliefs with our conscious beliefs and those with Objective Reality, then this is the only proven way to go.

There is so much about the human mind that we do not understand. It is a new frontier and its study will give us a power of our souls that we never thought possible. Traditional religion and spirituality has been able to tap into this power through certain techniques. Now we can secularize those techniques and do on purpose what was once achieved by accident.

What religious path is most suitable for the Romantic? I do not think that it exists. If it did, it would be a rooted in the Western Tradition and combine elements of Aristotelian philosophy, religious iconography (both Christian and Pagan), non-deistic Buddhism, hypnotherapy, Neural-Linguistic Programming, and psychology. The goal would be self-improvement and its purpose the pursuit of happiness.

I think that it will develop organically and any leaders who emerge will be seen as teachers for a time, and not leaders in any authoritarian sense, who will be paid on a person by person basis rather than a collection plate.

There will be morals, virtues, and values and therefore sins, but the sins are generally the expected mistakes and bumps along the road. The greatest sins are the violation of the Natural Rights to life, liberty, property, and the pursuit of happiness, in other words, don't murder, enslave, lie, cheat, and steal.

I do not know if it will take the path of having a metaphoric god-figure, as employed by the Satanist (who do no actually believe in a literal Satan), on which to focus the mind, but it is possible. Having such a figure is a useful tool. My current metaphoric deity is Athena, the goddess of Truth, Reason, and Justice.

No matter what may occur religion and spirituality has always been a part of the Romantic whether it is experiencing the emotions of the perceived divine or appreciating the divine wonder in the everyday, mundane world. I believe that Romanticism is intrinsically atheist, but it need not lack soul and spirituality.