I just received an email from Sam Harris explaining why he is retaining the word “spiritual,” a sort of rescue of the word from its mystical connotations because, in his words, “there seems to be no other term with which to discuss deliberate efforts some people make to overcome their feeling of separateness—through meditation, psychedelics, or other means of inducing non-ordinary states of consciousness.”

How about “connected?” “alive” “conscious”

I looked up “spiritual” and my first hit got this:
Of, relating to, consisting of, or having the nature of spirit; not tangible or material. See Synonyms at immaterial.
Of, concerned with, or affecting the soul.
Of, from, or relating to God; deific.
Of or belonging to a church or religion; sacred.
Relating to or having the nature of spirits or a spirit; supernatural.

...there’s quite a lot of woo woo in there.

Sam goes goes on to say “And I find neologisms pretentious and annoying.”  Neologisms is a word I didn’t know, so I looked it up.

1.a newly coined word, or a phrase or familiar word used in a new sense
2.the practice of using or introducing neologisms
3.(rare) a tendency towards adopting new views, esp rationalist views, in matters of religion

“Spirit” in the way Sam wants to use it *is*  a neologism in the first sense, which would make him guilty of neoligism in the second sense (and it is a heroic effort in the third sense, but he’s clearly not using the word that way).

I figure the idea will be well received, however, by believers and non-believers who just want to get along, to paper over their differences.  It’s like using the term God for “love.”  It’s simply placation—that’s very nice, but if God is just love, we already have a word for love.  Using “spirit” on both sides of this chasm—when the word clearly refers to the unsubstantial—will have this same sort of effect.  Is he trying to *change* the meaning of spiritual?  That wouldn’t be possible, or worthwhile. I’m a big fan of his, but I don’t agree with Sam on this one.

I don’t necessarily agree. Some of us have been discussing this topic in the General Discussion forum under “Check out my signature”, or something like that. I suggested it be moved to its own thread, so I’m glad you started a thread, thereby saving me from my laziness.

So when you are meditating or in a contemplative state, what is tangible and material about that (other than the fact that the material brain is responsible)? Sounds like the nature of spirit to me. I think this is what Sam is referring to, not the religious or supernatural definitions that you also mentioned.

What do people mean when they say “that’s the spirit!” or “that’s one spirited horse” or “that team showed great spirit”? Are they referring to woo or things supernatural? I think Sam is saying that the term spiritual can and should be used in the secular sense, and let’s not worry about the woo-ish connotations others may attach to it. I guess it’s all about context.

Thanks for the reply. 

I would say in return that yes, “spirit” is used in all those ways (and it even means alcohol).  But I use it specifically when I am explaining my views about life.  For example, I have friends who claim not to be religious, but they are spiritual, they say.  This means, to me (and from what I gather, to them) that sure they believe in a supernatural force or forces; they just don’t subscribe to a particular organized religious dogma.  I explain that I am not spiritual, much the same as I will take a position against faith based beliefs.  I don’t believe supernatural forces, and I like to base my beliefs on evidence.  That’s all very clear and it makes an important distinction.  It would be a much more tangled conversation if I were to say, “yes, I have a spiritual practice, but by that I mean it’s a meaningful practice to me, it makes me feel connected to the world and settles my mind and helps me thing of things in a larger perspective.”  They are likely to say “that’s nice” and the sharpest among them would think “that just psychology, not spiritual!”  We could act as though we had an understanding, but we would be worlds apart. 

I’d much rather say “I don’t believe in X” than “I believe in X too, but it means something different to me.”

Belief in skyhooks (using Dennett’s term for an intervening higher power) or just in cranes (natural processes) is a major major difference, and one which I think is worth coming clean about.  Someone who just wants to smooth things over would find a fuzzy definition useful, but I’m surprised Sam Harris is proposing this, as he was very clear on Faith, which also means a number of things (e.g., confidence, trust) in addition to wishful thinking.

Sam practiced Buddhism, thus it’s hard for him to disown spiritualism I’m sure.

Being an existentialist i don’t acknowledge spiritualism on the simple premise that there is no evidence for the existence of spirit.

No spirit no spiritualism. It is as simple as that for me.

We may be able to condition our cognition for certain comforts and prefer to call it spiritualism, but really, it’s all just variations of brain chemistry and the associated illusions, delusions that it causes.

Anyone can pray, meditate, reflect etc., but it offers no clues or evidences of anything immaterial in action. Just the material that we don’t yet understand.

No spirit no spiritualism. It is as simple as that for me.

I agree with everyone you said there. I don’t believe in anything supernatural whatsoever. Unfortunately, the word has multiple definitions, which is Sam’s point in the blog post. I don’t believe in a spirit, but I have no issues with spirituality in the way that I explained it. It is a messy word though, which is heavily laden with woo, so I can see Sam having an uphill battle with this one. It’s a bit like saying that a certain blues singer has a lot of soul. I’m not going to quibble and say “no soul, no soulful, sorry”.

It’s not like I ever tell anyone how spiritual I am. I really don’t think that I am, but I have no issues with using the term in a non-supernatural way. *shrug*