Emancipatory Spirituality or

On Spirituality: From a phenomenological perspective.

The awareness of human spirituality should be available to all humans without having
to rely on the teachings of others. Others who too often have a conscious or
unconscious vested interest in owning the domain.

Here a methodology for taking personal responsibility is suggested.

Phenomenology is the study and description of human experience as first encountered

using reasoned description and laying aside as much as possible previous ideas about
the nature of experience as encountered at that particular point in time.

Some religious believers describe spirituality as an awareness of the presence of god

or gods. With the benefit of modern education many prefer a non sectarian
perspective that either draws on teachings from a number of spiritual traditions or
from an intuitive approach to reflection on personal experiences, or a intuitive
integration of both.

Here it is suggested, that there is a more refined and disciplined approach that may
allow the development of spiritual awareness more rapidly and earlier in life than that
of the more intuitive learning of life experience.

Spirituality is described as a deeply moving emotional phenomenon of human

experience.

The phenomenon of spirituality is an awareness of a shared internal human quality

made possible by the experience of the senses or imagination or a mixture of both.
Some religious people also describe this as “being aware of the presence of god”.

Some religions claim god/s as their own discovery and that other views are not to be
respected. It is contended here, this view is promulgated as a result of the unconscious
politics of human organization. This phenomenon of spiritual competitiveness could
be seen as a result of the way in which primal psychological forces of ego
unconsciously capture human thought in the service of ego. This phenomenon is
called “the devil” by some religions; but is only an understanding that predates the
development of psychology.

Psychology has been an attempt by humans to study and describe the workings of the
human mind, in particular the complex inner workings not available to the senses;
often called the unconscious. Most people have to be very cautious about the way in
which the forces of the unconscious, inadvertently influence the workings of the
conscious mind, human emotions and consequent actions. Despite its use in providing
us with an objective language for the metaphysics of human experience, free of
metaphorical confusion of religion, psychology like other sciences stands of on the
ground of phenomenology.

Phenomonology was first described by Edmund Husserl. He suggested a process of

clear reasoned thought, that dissected the flow of thought flowing from or consequent
to an experience. Firstly a bracketing off of all memories, imaginings , judgements
and emotions not directly related to the experience being focused apon. Then
secondly a clear description of the experience. He went further,to assert the
phenomenology was the foundation of all scientific thinking.
It is suggested here that anyone attempting a phenomenological inquiry firstly
meditate on, reflect and describe the contents the mind prior to or as imagined after,
the description of the experience; to ensure that reappearance in the body of the
description can be clearly identified for what it is. This is not to say that its symbols
may not be a relevant factor in the description, because all descriptions rely on
metaphor or symbols of previous experience, and for communications purposes ,
shared experience.

The language or system of symbols used for this process should be what works for the
individual and those that they are trying to communicate with. This implies that
literature, art, music, dance, mathematics and science may be appropriate language
genres, for communicating a phenomenological experience.

With the ongoing process of sharing and consciousness raising this implies, we might
foresee a era of flowering human spirituality that transcends the structural limitations
of religious institutions. In doing so it might allow us to more freely integrate spititual
understandings into the structure and practices of necessary every day human
institutions, resolving much of the conflict of the recent past. Not forgetting the
valuable role religions may have played in championing spiritual awareness in the
time before the scientific revolution but accepting that their structural limitations are
making the redundant in a world now with no time or space for conflict.

Copyright to
Duncan Mills
September 19, 2010
(To be used freely for the purpose of study and discussion but not publication
elsewhere without the authors consent)