Introduction
The subject of being spiritual but not religious (SBNR) has been popping up in my awareness a lot lately. I have finally acknowledged that this label applies to me on a personal level. I also have an intellectual interest in spirituality and religion that supplements my personal concerns.
The term denotes those who have rejected formal organized religion but retain a desire for spiritual meaning. The Pew Research Centre’s research on US SBNRs is informative:
- 59% have become less religious over their lifetime
- 49% have become more spiritual over the years
- 38% say religion does more harm than good
- 72% say it is essential to be connected to my ‘true self’
- 33% think being connected to God is important (compared with 87% of religious and spiritual)
- 20% believe in God as described in the Bible
- 73% believe there is “some other higher power or spiritual force in the universe”
- 71% think parts of nature have spiritual energies
- 4% think following a religious faith is important
- 54% are religiously unaffiliated where 45% are religiously affiliated (still identify with a religion)
SBNR includes active seekers, practitioners of many kinds and those who essentially have an open frame of mind but don’t feel a need to engage in a specific spiritual practice.
Some observers see SBNR as an ill-disciplined and incoherent approach to one’s spirituality. The chief criticism is the that smorgasbord approach – taking a selection of what you fancy to create an indulgent plate of spiritual titbits – let’s you edit out the hard bits. Yeah. It’s a bit like Christianity in that regard.
Its also unkind and reflects an ignorance of the value of what’s on offer. It has been my approach. Since age 15 I have borrowed from Vedic, indigenous, Buddhist, Taoist, Zen, Theosophical, Cabalistic, Wiccan sources. I can throw in Tarot, astrology, ritual magic, crystals and spirit communications and still not exhaust the list. I also embarked on a profoundly frustrating quest of trying to make sense of Christianity – the faith I was born into but rejected when I was six. Fifteen years ago, I finally submitted my Social Ecology thesis on whether animism might be a way of understanding a life of persistent non-ordinary experiences. I thought so.
Dogmas, theologies and traditions may serve some people just fine, but that’s less and less the case as the declining figures on religious affiliation continue to demonstrate. SBNR is an individual expression of changing one’s diet because what’s on offer is variously unpalatable, unhelpful, uninspiring and sometimes downright toxic.
Below I want to reflect on being a seasoned SBNR quester, not as an assertion of any authority – just as a seasoned traveler – as one with something of an aerial view of the landscape.
The basics
The hardest thing for me was to develop a coherent picture of essential ideas. When I began, around 1966 in Tasmania, there wasn’t access to much at all. A friend’s mother discerned my youthful curiosity and lent me Paul Brunton’s Hidden Teachings Beyond Yoga. It took me 18 months to read the book. I found myself falling asleep after a few paragraphs – not out of boredom but over-stimulation. By the time I had finished I had quit my matriculation studies, abandoned an ambition to study geology and left home. When I finished the book, I could find no replacement and contented myself with reading western philosophy for a few years. In 1970, when I was 18, I knew I needed to leave Tasmania to find a place with more prospects for discovery.
In Melbourne and Sydney, I discovered the Theosophical Society’s Adyar Bookshop where I developed a basic understanding of the constituent bodies of being human – the physical, astral, mental and spiritual. I had several subsequent experiences that affirmed this way of thinking was useful.
I have had a persistent sense of spirit presence since around age 5. Through direct personal experience I encountered non-physical agents whose role it was to guide members of esoteric groups. Another was an agent with whom I conversed over several years through my then partner. That particular experience directed me into an inquiry about engaging with non-physical agents – the risks, benefits and pitfalls.
Subsequent experiences and inquiries established for me these three fundamental principles:
- We are multi-dimensional. Our physical body is not the core of who we are.
- We endure – not as the ‘I’ we presently know – but something greater and better than we presently are.
- Our consciousness is porous. Relationships and communications are multi-dimensional.
The god problem
Mostly when people say ‘God’ they mean the God of the Abrahamic faiths. I struggled for years to overcome a sense of revulsion against the term. It persists even now. I try to accept ‘God’ as a common generic term which means whatever we say it means for us.
But it’s a big idea – like Love and Justice. It defies precise universal meaning. One of the non-physical agents was helpful. He spoke of ‘the One’, of which mystics have long said is beyond comprehension and description.
To me the Abrahamic God is a tribal god inflated to become a cosmic deity – a fiction. This is now backed up by compelling scholarship.
The same agent said the gods were ‘of the One, not as the One’. The Abrahamic god could never be anything more than a tribal focus of attention.
But gods? He asserted that gods are real. I twice had experience of a presence of overwhelming power that the agent told us was a god. That was an utterly incredible thing to claim. Those experiences still sit in my ‘to be confirmed’ file. I can’t reject the idea because the two experiences were off the scale in intensity – way beyond anything I had encountered before by a massive margin.
Most of our ideas about gods have been deeply influenced by Christian ideas – which deny any validity to polytheism in favour a fictional monotheism. Other than the sense of ‘the One’ monotheism is a religious fiction.
So, I am okay with the ideas of gods and with understanding that the idea of gods has been so distorted we are a long way from that being a useful idea on a cultural level. There are those who do not share my caution and fully embrace the idea. But I quit ritual magic because it seemed to me more about taking things on faith – and that’s not something I am into. A case of pushing scepticism too far? Maybe, but that’s me being true to my nature.
Some insist that you can’t be ethical without God. This usually means the fictional monotheist God. But many critters have ethics and values with no evident sense of any divine presence. This could mean that nature is ethical in the widest possible sense and hence ethics is built into life and being. There is a fundamental conscious unity which we cannot describe and within which there are gods and a hierarchy of beings through the dimensions. This is reflected in how things are here. And within all this there seems to be innate laws which favour order and justice. I like the Egyptian goddess, Maat, as an expression of this theme.
The attributes of the One are claimed by the fictional monotheistic deity. This distorts our sense of what is morally okay. The One in a mystical sense is the God of Nature of Enlightenment thinkers. Hence saying we need God in order to have morals can be also framed as ‘we need nature to have morals’. Tribal gods favour ‘their’ people, so what is ‘good’ in that relationship can only ever be contextual – and never completely universal.
I hear the atheist’s objection – “If there is a God why does he let children suffer?” That’s such an awful argument – beyond dismissing the fictional deity crafted from the Abrahamic tradition. It’s an awful argument because it could be applied to any instance of human unhappiness and suffering, supposing that being made to suffer is a betrayal of trust. The myth that the creator of the cosmos has a personal interventionist interest in anyone has not only infantilized so many it has distorted and debased the idea of the divine – and our foundation of moral values.
To be clear, there are non-physical agents who may act to aid us, as well as do us ill. Catholicism, while depleting our natural ecology of ‘pagan’ spirits substituted saints to meet the intuitive need to seek localized intersession. But its not just saints who are available to us. That’s insight to be recovered.
These days I try to discipline myself to see ‘God’ as a term we use to mean our notion of the divine and not be biased against Christianity. If I were to be asked if I ‘believe in God’ my answer would be evasive – I have an idea of God which I hold to be true. But please don’t assume it’s the same as yours -if you have such a belief. I likewise have a sense of justice and ethics which may not accord with other’s ideas.
Belief
I spent several years trying to get my head around belief. I concluded that it served our psychological needs, not our rational needs. We use rational language to describe and communicate what we feel. We say ‘think’ when we mean ‘feel’. Thinking is a discipline we are usually pretty bad at, truth be told. So, as our psychological needs evolve, so we change what we believe. Hence when we can inhabit our inner sense of being, our psychological needs quieten, and beliefs evaporate. This is kinda what the Zen notion of no mind is about.
Debating what we believe – as if any person is right or wrong now – seems very strange and pointless to me. The more vulnerable we feel psychologically the ardently we hold beliefs – in an effort to shield our vulnerability. I am happy to explore ideas with others – but through mutually exploratory conversation rather than debate.
Some commentators assert that the ‘age of reason’ has made the language of science and rationality the social norm. Hence, we are more apt to say ‘think’ when ‘feel’ might be better. There is added gravitas in the term. This was brought home to me when I was watching a show featuring Dynamo, Magician Impossible. In response to an impressive performance a woman of modest educational attainment reacted, saying that what she had seen “ain’t scientific”. We all knew what she meant.
I have read a lot of academic books on religion. The intellectual focus often overruns the prospect that many ways of knowing are experience-based rather than the product of a mental process. This happens when there is no ‘theory of how things are’ that is rooted in experience. Reports of experiences are reinterpreted and translated as imagination or some psychological process. This is because the academic assumes that things can’t be as described. Everything unfamiliar and outside the assumed model ‘tastes like chicken’ – we frame the unfamiliar in terms of what is familiar to us.
We believe what seems right to us in every respect – whether spiritual or intellectual. Reality is way more complex than we can mostly imagine and all we have is our take on it. We believe out of necessity. We’d go crazy if we didn’t. But we need to hold our beliefs with gentle hands and remember that they are ours alone.
Some sources
There is an abundance of material that the SBNRer can find. It’s of variable value and integrity. For what it’s worth, I reflect a little on what sources I esteem below.
The mystical
There are foundational sources of mystical wisdom that endure across the ages. I still love Zen, Tao, Buddhist and Vedic sources. I am not much into moderns like Steiner or Gurdjieff for no particular reason other than I haven’t been able to feel excited by them.
I don’t recommend sources because people will be drawn to what best suits them at the time through an inner impulse. The point is to be open to other ideas that are not familiar. Being curious helps.
There’s a lot of dross on YouTube, but there are some gems that can be found with patience. I liked this: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9KArWcMldPM
Out of body
I read Robert Monroe’s Journeys Out of the Body in the late 1970s and soon after had a verifiable OOBE and then was involved in another verifiable OOBE a friend had. The fact we can be consciously out of our bodies is a fundamental and foundational understanding. I have read all of Robert Monroe’s books and I found Thomas Campbell’s My Big TOEparticularly useful.
Robert Monroe set up the Monroe Institute, which remains an invaluable institution exploring the potential of our capacity to go out of body. It’s not something I am eager to get into. I just don’t feel the need. But I commend it to those who do.
Spirit communication
This is also called channeling and can be anything from the delusions of people who fancy they are the vessel for emotionally agitated archangels or some serious liars and manipulators. Or they could tap into sources of profound and provocative insight. Below are a few sources that I find engaging and provocative. I am careful not to say ‘believe’ because although a source isn’t physical it should be no less subject to critical evaluation.
Some of the Amazon links below have the intended content below what comes up first. I use Amazon because it shows ebooks and audiobooks, and I am committed to accessibility. If you buy 3D books, please use your local bookshop.
- Frank DeMarco is associated with the Monroe Institute and his books featuring a former colleague, Rita, are fascinating and challenging.
- Stewart Edward White’s The Betty Book and The Unobstructed Universe are classics that seem to have fallen out of favour. The Unobstructed Universe, the later of the 2, was published in 1940, so the style is old, but the content, the ideas, is not.
- Jane Roberts’ Seth books.
- Joe Fisher’s The Siren Call of Hungry Ghosts is a cautionary tale all who venture into channeling should read.
- I recently discovered Lee Harris’s Conversations with the Zs books. They are intriguing.
- I discovered The Ra Contact a few years back and writing this has reminded to revisit.
This list is neither exhaustive nor definitive. It’s just what I am familiar with and recommend. A lot of the content isn’t suited to linear thinking, so it requires patience and a willingness to place immediate critical reflexes on hold. I don’t mean don’t be critical – just not reflexively and immediately.
The bodies and chakras
My sources were exclusively from the Theosophical Society bookshop from decades ago. I found this book on Amazon and chose because it was highly rated:
Spiritual Anatomy: Meditation, Chakras, and the Journey to the Center
by Daaji Kamlesh D. Patel
NDEs and reincarnation
Both are foundational realities which have been intensely studied and affirm the persistence of our consciousness beyond the body. Both themes can be searched for on Amazon – with an abundance of hits. I haven’t read on the themes for decades, so I can make no recommendations.
YouTube has some good content. Some of the stuff on reincarnation is just silly, but there’s good content as well. I noticed a video with Thomas Campbell that’s worth watching. The content on NDEs merits caution. This isn’t because there’s necessarily intentional misinformation offered.
The very nature of NDEs is that people experience what they believe. The ‘reality’ entered is subjective rather than objective. There are technical reasons why this is the case, and I don’t want to mislead by attempting a brief explanation. It is sufficient that NDEs are valid experiences. But it also means that we should be wary of taking the reports as literally, objectively, true. The message is what should concern us, not the descriptive detail.
Psychology
Research into spirituality and into how we think and feel affirms the insights of the past and adds rational depth to our appreciation of why we act as we do.
Psychology should be the primary insight/wisdom source of our age. Leadership is a theme that is researched and written on intensively. These have been the most inspirational sources for me on a personal level because they deal with personal accountability, self-awareness and emotional intelligence on a daily level. Here are three of my favourite texts:
Overall psychology has revolutionised how we understand being human in the past 40 years. We don’t need ancient texts in archaic language to school us in the essentials of being a decent person. We are moral by nature, and we are far more complex and remarkable than our culture’s religions allow us to imagine.
I read a lot of works on psychology. Below is a very brief sample of what I have engaged with in the past few years.
- Modern Man in Search of a Soul by Carl Gustav Jung
- The Master and His Emissary by Ian McGilchrist
- Man’s Search for Meaning by Viktor Frankl
- The Awakened Brain by Lisa Miller
- The Righteous Mind by Jonathan Haidt
- You Are Not So Smart by David McRaney
- The Moral Animal by Robert Wright
- The Body Keeps the Score by Bessel van Kolk
- DMT: The Spirit Molecule by Rick Strassman
- Ritual by Dimitris Xygalatas
- How Emotions Are Made by Lisa Feldman Barrett
A note on podcasts and audiobooks
The number of podcasts is overwhelming. Audiobooks are growing in number steadily. This reflects a growing trend away from reading 3D printed material. There isn’t a reduced craving for ideas – it’s just that the medium of transmission is evolving. Audio devices are portable and discrete so, in theory, we have more access to ideas and inspiration. This means a SBNRer who is inspired to serious inquiry has an unprecedented opportunity to explore.
My passion is audiobooks. Seventeen years ago, I acquired several disabilities, one which radically diminished my ability to enjoy holding 3D books. Then I went almost exclusively audio. Now I can listen while driving, walking and doing tasks.
Spirituality isn’t just about esoteric stuff. It’s about the human spirit in this world as well. There are great podcasts that explore aspects of being human. Below I have listed my regular go-tos. I haven’t touched on more than a small portion of what’s available.
- ABC’s Late Night Live
- CBC’s Ideas
- The Telepathy Tapes
- People Who Read People
- No Stupid Questions
- You Are Not So Smart
- To The Best of Our Knowledge
- The Psychology Podcast
- Thinking Allowed
Conclusion
Being SBNR is about grazing an extraordinary smorgasbord of offerings to construct a made-to-measure conception of the spiritual – and being human. That’s an evolution in keeping with bespoke creation in so many other areas of human needs and wants. It’s like being able to create your own playlist. What’s not to like?
Of course, those who want to force feed you their dogmas and obey their rules don’t like it. But, as Christian Smith in his excellent Why Religion Went Obsolete shows – that’s a passé mentality. And maybe it will also be an extinct one in the not too distant future.
Of course there is no uniform model of an SBNRer. Some are content just to have the attitude. Others practice what appeals to them and are context with their niche being replete with ideas they love. Others are serious inquirers for whom it’s a life mission. I am the last sort. I have a passion for inquiring that arose originally from needing to comprehend a seemingly relentless stream of ‘non-ordinary’ experiences that plagued me since age 6. A lot of what I do seems more like therapy than anything else.
The argument that being SBNR is ill-disciplined and chaotic reflects authoritarian passions. Some have a discrete system they have found and stay with. Others see spirit is a universal presence that can be found in anything. Picking and mixing is no different to selecting a bunch of flowers from a great garden.
To me being SBNR is celebratory. It is liberating.
There is, however, a certain grounded reality that we need to grasp. That basic knowledge is like physics for the material world and has been taught through the ages -sometimes laced liberally with dogma and lore. It isn’t a belief system. It’s not a dogma. It is experience-based knowledge.
It isn’t taught in the Abrahamic faiths, save maybe to elite members. It is taught in the ‘east’ still because there doesn’t seem to be a history of attempted repression. The traditions of India, Tibet, China and Japan are still available to us. It was taught in the Greek mystery schools that were suppressed by Christians. It is taught in the Theosophical Society and esoteric/occult schools, some other spiritual organizations or groups, and by individuals who operate within a discipline – like yoga – but to a limited degree.
Being SBNR is an opportunity to recover what has been suppressed and to explore what is in potential. SBNR sits between secular materialism and the traditions and dogmas of formal institutional faiths.
It is where our hope of a better future resides.