Friday, September 18, 2009

How do you know you are "Spiritual"?

From Philip Rieff's Charisma (at p. 21):

Spirituality, as Kierkegaard knew, is a way of opting out of the fight to be a man of power. It is to "live as though dead," i.e., without power. But spirituality so threatens ordinary men, who want their fill of things, to conquer and digest, that they demand "the death of the man of spirit," or rush upon him "to put him to death." This is how it came about, concluded Kierkegaard, that Christ was crucified. There are two kinds of death-dealing: God's and man's. When the spirit strikes, it kills the assertion of the body, self-assertions. When the body strikes, it kills the assertion of the spirit, God's assertion.

So spirituality is a turning away from possibility, not "going for it," not grasping, thrusting, wresting, seizing, overpowering, possessing, controlling, taking, using, wanting. Since "power corrupts" one finds the spiritual man in the act of running the other way. I run alot, but usually in the wrong direction.

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