The brave spirit

Mukul Sharma

The term spiritual, which comes from the Latin spiritus, originally meant nothing more than the English word for breath. But since breathing has always been so closely identified as an essential act of living, it quickly took on the meaning of something vital to life as in a life force or elan vital - a source of causation and evolution in humans and a more than mere material reason for remaining worldly.

Thereafter, the word rapidly developed along this newfound semantic and became increasingly associated with things relating to the sacred such as the soul, religion and divinity. Simultaneously, it also took on the added meaning involving the supernatural, paranormal and ghostly till, finally, about 200 years ago, it got appropriated by the mystical sect that immediately began applying it to all things transcendent.

It's obvious, however, why hard-core atheists and their tribe foam at the mouth whenever the word is mentioned because, to them, it only conjures up an unproven dimension of daft rubbish such as astrology, faith-healing and godmen.

Fortunately, some atheists are braver people who don't want to lose out on a good word forever. Christopher Hitchens, an outspoken unbeliever who died last year, was one such who insistedon using 'spiritual' when he wanted to connote the deep meditative "beauty or significance that provokes awe". How else, he said, would he describe the pleasures afforded by certain works of art and music - not to mention the photos taken by the Hubble ultra-deep-field space telescope - if not as 'spiritual'?