Post-spiritual

This is a topic meant to explore the idea of post-spirituality, defined by me here as the lack of (certain types of) orientation toward or necessity with respect to matters deemed "spiritual", such as religion, questions of God or the after- (or before-) life, universal metaphysics/ethics, etc. This is a perspective that actively resists and refuses to engage these spiritualist ideas on any level other than the most removed sort of analysis which assumes firstly and always the ideas' own irrelevancy. (Note this is not the atheist position of "there is no God/etc" nor is it the agnostic position of "I don't/can't know"). These ideas are approached, by the post-spiritualist, when they are still approached by him or her, as merely IDEAS which have no bearing upon the otherwise pursuits, interests and areas of focus and development of this individual - his or her thought has moved beyond all degree of a necessity for any so-called spiritual/religious concern/thought/positing.

This does not, of course, exempt this individual from considering, for instance, certain social or psychological utilities of these spiritual ideas. Nor does it prevent this individual from, if he or she so chooses, entertaining wild speculations and hypothesis for the sake of engaging with certain ends-purposes that might be attained from such activities. The true difference between the post-spiritualist and the non-post-spiritualist (examples of the latter being the pre-spiritualist (if such a thing exists), semi- or full-spiritualist, and the a-spiritualist) lies in the manner of orientation toward the idea, the substance of this individual's perspective/s and thought/s. This individual is able to consider the total absence or non-truth of all "spiritual" matters seriously, actively and totally, and this allows this individual to powerfully juxtapose conceived and imagined perspectives/truth-forms/ideas/possibilities that otherwise attain to radically opposite natures. In so doing the individual in question moves past being sutured to any particular spiritualist position or perspective, entertaining no prior assumptions with regard to God/afterlife/whatever. This is not active "disbelief" nor "suspension of belief" but something entirely different - truly post-spiritual, post- able to seriously consider from a perspective which does not already at least in part incorporate elements of the spiritual perspective's own undoing/irrelevancy.

(Also an interesting line of investigation here which I would like to pursue is to what extent we might say that the post-spiritualist is also capable of the inverse of the above, at the same time - which is to say capable of positing necessarily with respect to the spiritual, and/or positing necessarily without this respect. Indeed the post-spiritual seems not only able to entertain thought without spiritualist assumptions, but also, by virtue of this, able also to entertain from an inverse position as well, if this individual would choose to do so. The intersection between these two possibilities forms an interesting cross-section of possibility, which we might explore futher here.)

So I would like to propose the term "post-spiritual" as a way of identifying this difference between all perspectives which to some degree or another suture themselves to the/a spiritualist perspective (either "for", "against" or "ambivalent") and all perspectives which do not do this. This latter being the post-spiritualism which is able to posit anything and entertain anything absolutely with or without respect to so-called spiritual ideas/possibilities. The/a spiritualist idea or any derivation or implication thereof becomes merely one more idea among every other, privileged in absolutely no way whatsoever be it cognitively, emotively or intuitively-structurally.

Interestingly I see this post-spiritualist perspective as actually able to GAIN and WIN the spiritualist possibilities for itself, whatever this might mean, precisely because it has lost being bound up within these perspectives - it has freed itself from all shackles to spiritualist ideas, assumptions, biases, desires. Because of this, the post-spiritualist is able to examine these matters, if he or she wishes to do so (often he or she does not, indeed as there are usually other more pressing concerns to focus upon and deal with), and come to truly open and comprehensive, full and unbiased/unclouded (by psychological prejudices, self-blindnesses or rationalisms) view of the vast terrains of spiritual ideas and possibilities. It is possible that this post-spiritualist perspective is actually able to attend to the spiritual in a far more honest and powerful way than the non-post-spiritualist who is always to some extent blinded, confused, pre-empted and/or co-opted by certain or other pre-notions, cognitive impossibilities for thought or psychologistic needs or desires.

Note that this topic is not necessarily an enquiry into the utilities of spiritualist perspectives/ideas, of which certainly there are many. Nor is it a debate on the "truth" or "reality" of these so-called spiritual matters. This topic, like the post-spiritualist, seeks to transcend these narrow confines and move beyond, into deeper and more fundamental, essential and unrestricted concerns.

The idea has also been raised that the perhaps opposite of the post-spiritualist, e.g. the "sublimely spiritual" individual who has edified and developed his spirituality to a supreme height thus transcending all particular religious prejudices, limitations and dogmas - who has become a "true" spiritualist by adopting an entirely self-honest and powerful orientation toward and with respect to all matters "spiritual" in nature, thus who has freed him or herself from all concerns and viewpoints which would be detrimental to this heightened spiritual possibility - is closer to the post-spiritualist than anything "in between" these two dichotomous perspectives. This is to say that the continuum from one end of "full spiritualist" perspective to the far end of post-spiritualist has a wide range of middle points where the vast majority of people lie, and that the ends of this continuum meet and form a sort of closed circle. They are supposed to meet in this manner because each end-point has fully transcended all that came "before" it, all that is not-itself - one has fully actualized (powerfully and honestly realized a perspective/possibility for thought/being) with respect to "spirituality" either by totally and completely orienting toward-with this spiritualism or by totally and completely orienting away-without this spiritualism (i.e. the pushing of the possibility of the spiritual into a total and compelte necessity, either a necessity FOR and WITH it or a necessity WITHOUT it). These two extreme positions seem to suppose a certain similarity to each other with respect to quality of development of consciousness, willed self-honesty and a surpassing-over of the wide range of other "middle points" which lie further within the continuum. The similarity lies in the pushing of the spiritual idea/possibility to a necessity, either one or the other ("1 or 0", essentially) - each such necessity has purged itself of what is not-itself, of what would otherwise be (and indeed always is for every other less-necessry perspective) a destabilizing other and impossibility of and for itself.

This topic is also a place to explore this notion of the similarity between the post-spiritualist perspective and its theoretical inverse, the "sublime spiritualist".

Also important to note that the post-spiritualist is not one who simply has never engaged spiritual possibilities or ideas. The post-spiritualist position is an active rather than passive one, a perspective which has passed all that is spiritual through the fires of its own mind and heart, rendering spiritual possibilities fully and honestly within itself, and then coming through to pass beyond all necessity for and of these sort of considerations and possibilities. The post-spiritualist has forged this perspective actively and with great effort just as the sublime spiritualist has (presumably) also done this with respect to his or her own radically opposing perspective (i.e. a perspective of the full and total necessity OF and FOR the spiritual).

The naive or a-spiritualist cannot be a post-spiritualist because he or she has never fully and willfully engaged these possibilities, given them total and honest consideration, pushed each idea and possibility to its furthest extreme thus exposing and exploring its most essential and sufficient nature, and thus earning the capability and power to posit without (or in the case of the sublime spiritualist, with full and total) respect to this ideational/emotive nature.

I love this thread, not only because of the usual reasons, but also because it lends legitimacy to the antichristian, um, anticrusade. No longer must antichristians be missunderstood as atheistic or reactionary.

All shit-disturbing aside, I do have some things to say.

What separates the post-spiritual and the sublime spiritual?

Only the post-spiritual have completely gone beyond the Gods and religions they were taught, for it is only through those Gods and religions that the sublime spiritualist has acces to sublime spiritualism.

Like necrophilia.

I think the difference might largely lie in the language used; I think it is possible that the post-spiritualist and the sublime-spiritualist have attained very similar states of consciousness, but the one conceptualizes without appeal to spiritual notions while the other with appeal only to spiritual notions. In other words, I think that the spiritualist may be able to edify his consciousness into an apotheosis of sorts which suffuses "spiritual content", as conceptuality and meaning, with everything, thus rendering spirituality "invisible" or "background". This might be able to indirectly render spirituality irrelevant, although the spiritualist would probably be convinced that "all is spiritual" rather than "none is spiritual" (as is actually the case).

So while structurally they may both attain very similar consciousnesses, intentions and possibilities, these two states would still be different in the language they use, and the post-spiritualist would always attain a level of self-disclosure and honesty above that of the sublimely-spiritualist because the post-spiritualist alone does not lie to himself.

But all this is very speculative, while I understand the position of post-spirituality very well I have very little understanding of "sublime-spirituality"; I am only positing this state of mind, assuming its possibility. It is certainly possible that no such thing really exists, that all spirituality (either pro or con) is inextricably mired in delusion and self-restriction. Maybe post-spirituality is the only truly rational and noble state of mind.

I see Gods as products of surplus value. Whenever a civilization reaches a level of sufficient culture, when it starts to produce more than its animal requirements, when its cumulative self-valuing is well received and naturally structured in a communal being, a culture, Gods are a reality.

Gods may come in the form of myths, of morals, of aesthetic ideals, or of rituals for practical magic, by which I mean transmutation of libidinal energy into ritualized ecstacy, leading to the deepening of the psychological labyrinth, to the substantiating of this civilizations humanity vs its animality through the medium of exalting animal tribality to a further valuing consequence, which is its own holiness, its own (relation to) Gods.

I have noticed that Gods can in fact be addressed, offered to and received from. Of course such entities of interaction are living "witihn the psyche". Gods are, in all rational accounts of them, described as "inner plane beings". I now understand this to mean that they are a real material of the psyche, which is what Capable suggests, although I go a few steps beyond the historical fact of their existencde as tools for man to relate to himself and the world in a first proro-conscious way.

To me Gods are loci of bestowed value. When a civilization produces the excess of culture, I see that one of the dynamics that arises is of a pre-reational "psychicness" or "collective unconscious" that connect members of this culture via terms of their most deeply rooted ancestral values, which have been given a special power and precedence over more practical concerns of daily life. Gods represent the ghistory of values, they precede reason, and they can be "activated" in the psyche of probably every human, if they are just addressed with the proper "respect, (in the sense that one recognizes values by what we call honoring.

The extent of the power of awakened, summoned Gods over the human psyche is still, in most humans, overwhelming. Only when value is understood rationally can such powers be analyzed, but this does not mean that they are neutralized. For that to happen every bit of atavistic value-bestowing that pertains to them has to be explicated in new terms, brought above the ground, so to speak. Foer this however ratio is nopt enough, of course, since ration does not itself covey valyues. Poetry is required, art. An argumernt can be made that this would simply mean conjuring up new Gods.

Whenever a civilization, as a healthy collective of self-valuings, produces excess of value, and this it must do wherever its activity does not consist of a violent repressing of self-value, the loci where this excess of value concentrates is what we call a pantheon, a heaven, an Olympos - the spearhead of collective exaltation. Ratio can do nothing to strip such focal events of their meaning, it can only disable man to consciously address them by disqualifying the experiences pertaining to them as invalid.

If we are post-spirituality we are also post-materialism.


The phenomenon of nihilism is not what ails our time. I have discussed the division of empirical and transcendental reason. The consequence is that transcendental and empirical reason both destroy themselves when divided. The modern Christian blindly refuses truth and reduces his God to a mere father figure instead of the obscura dei and fulcrum of poetic and philosophic perspectives on his life, and the circle of reason, in the words of Hamann, spins itself into skepsis and mere self-destruction. Look at the recent bullshit debate between creationists and atheists like Dawkins. The materialism and "religion" in these debates are both trivial vapid shit, false shadows of empirical philosophy and transcendental philosophy alike. It is not merely that we lack values today, we lack the capacity to value. This I talk about in the second aphorism in the 20 page excerpt I posted.


The Greek self was an antagonism which was temporarily, that is, daemonically, stabilized by means of artistic and philosophical creation. Their Gods were expressions of their high degree of daemonism. The Judaeo-Christians re-interpreted the self as an irresolvable contradiction between the mortal and divine aspects of the body and soul, and the excess became an absolute lack or longing which could only be satisfied in the image of God. Their singular God was something entirely different, psychologically.


My work is about defending the category of the Excess, re-actualizing the concept of the absolute and truth, and re-integrating the two modes of reason.

Parodites wrote:

If we are post-spirituality we are also post-materialism.


The phenomenon of nihilism is not what ails our time. I have discussed the division of empirical and transcendental reason. The consequence is that transcendental and empirical reason both destroy themselves when divided. The modern Christian blindly refuses truth and reduces his God to a mere father figure instead of the obscura dei and fulcrum of poetic and philosophic perspectives on his life, and the circle of reason, in the words of Hamann, spins itself into skepsis and mere self-destruction. Look at the recent bullshit debate between creationists and atheists like Dawkins. The materialism and "religion" in these debates are both trivial vapid shit, false shadows of empirical philosophy and transcendental philosophy alike. It is not merely that we lack values today, we lack the capacity to value. This I talk about in the second aphorism in the 20 page excerpt I posted.


The Greek self was an antagonism which was temporarily, that is, daemonically, stabilized by means of artistic and philosophical creation. Their Gods were expressions of their high degree of daemonism. The Judaeo-Christians re-interpreted the self as an irresolvable contradiction between the mortal and divine aspects of the body and soul, and the excess became an absolute lack or longing which could only be satisfied in the image of God. Their singular God was something entirely different, psychologically.

Very different, yes - the Greek Gods were pure value-excess, means to communicate with the self via the process yuou identify as deamonic - the root of what we may or may not develop into a truly waking consciousness (of our self-valuing in action, as valuing) and in this capacity they are purely positive and hence limited in their existence, not omnipresent, not all -powerful, but specific entities built of projection of value. These forms did not give rise to any sort of theology, theories about the nature of God(s). This only arose in full force with Socrates and Plato, who made of the Gods moral entities, and absolutes. With this move, they pushed humanity into the shadow realm, where indeed there is no space for either God or matter. Something non-existent, such as objective good, an objective valuing capacity `out there´, was proposed as prior and fundamental to man. Mans negation was proposed as being fundamental to man.

Mans attempts later on to rematerialize this alienated godhood are reflected in the rituals and iconography of catholicism, but this religion speaks mostly very eloquently of the void left by conception of God as untouchable, beyond and out there. It is only because of the secret pagan beliefs of the ´masonic´ orders that the Cathedrals possess such an earthly sublimeness. If these architects had believed in the All God, instead of in focal loci of erotic `cosmic´ force, all churches would have been barren, empty halls desecrated by an image of a man on a torture apparatus. Now, despite the presencde of the mandatory cross, some cathedrals do maintain a certain reality, a potency, speak of and to valuing power.

Theology, in the christian sense, is the study of pure meaninglessness, which in human terms means weakness, disease, decay, ugliness. Classical myth is the subject of raw excess and the first shapes this excess takes into erotic logos ~ aesthetics, narrative, creating the terms we still hold as the most worthy of human experiences. In fact the term human, as in humane, humanist, is a cold condensation of the self/value concept derived from this excess.

I suspect that to advance philosophy in the way you propose, and indeed I can see this in your writing, we can not directly abandon the idea of Gods or spirit, but must first return to its proper meaning, its daemonic nature, and even create new Gods or reforge old ones into more philosophical terms, to suit and sustain the project of philosophy, and especially to communicate it, deamonically, besides via pure analytical logos.

In this sense I thinkt that Pezers interpretation of Nietzsche´s `belief´ in Gods is accurate.

Post-spiritualism, or at least the evolution theory type, isn't only to do away with the Jesus cult and all that is divine along with it: it is to subjectively understand it as evolved and understand our rationality as an evolution of it. The beauty of this evolutionary understanding is that succes is seen to evolve from a mistake instead of the backwards way most thinkers think. Only from mistake does an evolutionist accept success, all else stinks of con job.

This by way of post-ontological knowledge theory.

Hello Folks
This topic is rather dear to my heart and its wonderful to see that others share some of my own perspectives around this subject. I spent many months trying to articulate just what a Post-Spiritualist POV is to a doubting world- especially to spiritual folk. I tried to create a tapestry of elements that might allow a person to enter into this world without bias or condescension so that they might be open to considering such a life for themselves. It is far too elaborate to condense here in a post, but if you are interested in a detailed presentation of how one man is living it, please feel free to either let me know or check it out and let me know what you think. [Moderator - please feel free to delete the link if you feel that it is inappropriate here - It can be seen at http://jedmckenna.wordpress.com/post-spirituality/ ]
Brian