Ancestors in Thumotic Spirituality, Part 2

The Post Post-Christian Opportunity 

In Thumotic spirituality, we have an opportunity to once again understand the importance of our ancestors. We owe them our lives. We would not be here without them. Their life, their spirit lives on in us. It spirits us and gives us life. We are a continuation of them in body, mind, and spirit.

Unfortunately, we know little about our ancestors beyond our grandparents. We cannot tell their stories or sing their songs. They are lost to us. At best we might be able to discover their names, birth and death dates, and where they lived. Depending on who they were and what they did, we might stories about them in books and other written records. 

Under the dominance of Christianity, nationalism, and capitalism we lost a great treasure. We lost our conscious connection with our ancestors, the ones who gave us life and who live on in us. Our lack of knowing them means we know ourselves less.

How to Begin Reconnecting With Our Ancestors

The good news is that we can begin now to reclaim our lost treasure. If we know our parents and grandparents and their siblings, we can harvest their stories, record them in a variety of ways, and tell them to the next generation and the one after that. 

We can trace our ancestry and fill out our family tree. As we do, we can research historical writings to see if anything was written about our ancestors. 

We can also learn about our ancestry from genetic testing. Genetic testing can show us where our ancestors originated and migrated down through history up to the present day. 

In these and other ways we will once again remember, honor, value, and give worth to those who gave us life and whose spirit spirits us. 

In knowing and valuing our ancestors, we will better know and affirm our own spirit as well.

Ancestors in Thumotic Spirituality, Part One

What happened to ancestor worship in Western civilization?

First, it is important to understand what "ancestor worship" in this context means. In this context to worship someone means to give worth to and value that person. Such worship may or may not be a religious activity.

Pre-Christian Practice

Prior to Christianity's rise to dominance, we Westerners worshiped our ancestors; that is, we gave them worth. We valued our ancestors. We remembered their names, told their stories, sang their songs on winter nights, and cherished the possessions they handed down to us.

Chrisitan Practice

But Christianity values faith over family ties. Instead of giving worth to family members, Christianity directs the faithful to give worth primarily to God and secondarily to exemplars of the faith. Catholics and Protestants alike give worth to God. They also give worth to the prophets, apostles, saints, holy ones, reformers, great theologians, and evangelists of the faith. They remember them, honor and praise them, tell their stories, and sing their songs.

So, under the dominance of Christianity we Westerners replaced giving worth to our ancestors with giving worth to exemplars of the faith. 

Post-Christian Idols

Later, when Christianity's dominance waned and nationalism waxed, we Westerners replaced idolizing exemplars of the faith with national heroes: kings and queens, patriots and war heroes. 

Now, in our capitalist economy, our idols are the rich, sports stars, and other entertainment icons. We give great worth to them. We tell their stories in our media, consume their product, and give them great wealth.

Part Two

Part Two will talk about the opportunity we now have to reclaim giving worth to our ancestors and the benefits of doing so. 

Physicality of Our Spirit

Since Renee Descartes, if not since the rise of Christianity to cultural dominance, we Westerners  have tended to divide reality into two realms: the physical and the spiritual. 

We perceive that which is physical with our eyes, ears, noses, hands, and tongues. That which we cannot perceive with our physical senses we call spiritual. We know what is spiritual, if we know it at all, by faith in those to whom it was revealed. 

In this Western dualistic view, the human body, part of physical realm, became an object of science. The human spirit, part of the spiritual realm, became an object of religious faith and theology. 

However, this dualistic view of reality is culturally and historically limited to Western civilization. It has never been the view of everyone on the planet. Neither has it always been the view of Westerners. Today, in modern Western science, it is an antiquated view surpassed by modern physics.

Ancient Greeks, among others, viewed the human spirit (thumos) as quasi-physical. It was both unseen and physically located in the body, specifically in the chest, in and around the thymus gland.  It was associated with the lungs and even more so with the breath.

If the spirit left the body temporarily, fainting occurred. If it left permanently, death occurred.

Its varying degrees determined a person's physical weakness and strength. It also had both cognitive and emotional functions.

In the view of the Ancient Greeks spirit and body were so closely connected that they did not exist apart from each other.

The Ancient Greek view of spirit informs the Thumotic perspective. 

6 Ways to Affirm the Spirit of Others

Say "Yes!" to all living beings:

Affirm the spirit of the young saying, "Yes, you are unique and have unique gifts to share. We need what only you can contribute. You will do wonderful things."

Affirm the spirit of those off the mark saying, "Yes, and you can do better. We need you to do even better."

Affirm the spirit of the sick and injured saying, "Yes, we need you. There is only one of you. You can be whole again. I will help."

Affirm the spirit of the healthy and whole saying,"Yes, you're making a difference. Thank you! I'm telling others about you."

Affirm the spirit of our elders saying, "Yes, you did well. Thank you. Teach us.Tell us your story."

Affirm the spirit of our ancestors saying, "Yes, your spirit spirits us. We remember you with gratitude. Thank you. Because of you we now live."

How Our Mind Stirs Our Spirit

If our spirit is that which makes alive and our mind is our cognitive function, what role does our mind play in our emotions, the up-stirrings of our spirit?

In my view, our mind often plays the key role in determining what emotions we feel.

For example, when we're taking a walk, see an object in our path, and interpret it to be a snake, we might feel fear. However, when we see it clearly and correctly interpret it to be a stick, we might then feel embarrassed and relieved. 

Perceiving a snake is not just a matter of our sense sight. Neither is it merely a cognitive interpretation. It's a bio-psycho-social-spiritual event. It involves our physical sense of sight, our cognitive interpretation formed by our society.  Our spirit not only makes the whole process of perceiving and interpreting possible but also responds to our interpretation by either being stirred up or remaining homeostatic.

Our spirit is what makes us alive and therefore able to perceive and interpret our perceptions. No spirit, no life; no life, no perception or interpretation; no perception or interpretation; no emotion (up-stirring of spirit). 

Put affirmatively: spirit makes both perception and interpretation possible, interpretation makes emotion (up-stirring of spirit) possible.

Interpretation of perception is a function of our mind. How we interpret our perceptions determines how our spirit is stirred; that is, what emotions we feel. 

The process is cyclic, beginning and ending with with spirit.

The moral of this story: we can manage our spirit with our mind.

Emotions: Up-stirrings of Our Spirit

Etymology of Emotion

To understand our emotions it can be helpful to explore the etymology of the word:

Our word "emotion" comes from Old French emouvoir "stir up" which comes from Latin emovere "move out, remove, agitate." Emovere is the sum of ex- "out" + movere "to move." 

The image of emotion is of something being stirred up and moving outward rather than inward, upward, downward or any other direction. 

The first recorded use of "emotion" to refer to a strong inner feeling was in the 1650s. It was used to refer to any inner feeling by 1808..

In other words, "emotion" originally referred  to external movements and stirrings and was applied metaphorically to the inner up stirrings we now call our emotions. Its metaphorical use is relatively recent and modern.

What is Stirred Up and Moves Outward?

So, what exactly is moved and stirred up when we feel emotions?

Is it our mind that is stirred up? I don't think so. What gets stirred up in our mind is our thoughts. 

Is it our body that is stirred up? I don't think so because we can experience the up stirring we call emotions and remain motionless. 

I think it's our spirit, that which makes us alive. Our spirit is stirred up, moved, or agitated and moves from within us outward to be expressed in our words and physical movements.    

Stimuli of Our Spirit

What stirs up our spirit? I suggest that our spirit responds to stimuli that either affirm or deny it. 

Stimuli that affirm our spirit support and sustain our spirit, our aliveness. We welcome such stimuli and call such stirrings joy, happiness, gratitude, excitement, fear, guilt, and sorrow. When we feel such stirrings we feel more alive, more spirited.

Stimuli that deny our spirit suppress and threaten our spirit, our aliveness. We resist such stimuli and call such stirrings fear, anger, sadness, guilt, loneliness, and despair. When we feel such stirrings we feel less alive, less spirited.

So, in my view our emotions are less about our minds and psychology and more about our spirits and thumology.

Contra "Mind-Body" Duality

The Mind-Body View

In our current Western scientific view of being human, we put everything about our body in the physical sciences folder and everything not about our body in the psychological sciences folder. We have only two folders: one for body, another for mind.  It's a crude, simplistic system.

Questioning the Mind-Body View

One problem with this view is that we associate everything in the psychological sciences folder with "mind." When we look closer at everything associated with "mind" questions arise: Is associating our spirit with our mind the best way to view either our spirit or our mind? Is associating our instincts, desires, drives, and emotions with our mind the best way to view them? Is all of our self-talk limited to our mind?

My answer to all of these questions is "no." 

Proposing a New View

I propose a third folder: one for spirit. Everything about our spirit goes into the thumological sciences folder.

And what might go in the thumological folder? Everything associated with spirit, that which makes alive: our spirit itself; our instincts, desires and drives (to live, associate, eat, drink, have sex, reproduce, nurture, protect); our emotions that fuel and express our desires and drives (fear, anger, sadness, joy, guilt and others); and our self-talk directed at these things.    

 

Some Benefits of the New View

I believe this three-folder view makes possible a more elegant and refined view of what it means to be human. It affirms our spirit and helps us see our instincts, drives, desires, emotions, and  some of our self-talk in a new light, the light of our spirit. It also helps us see how our spirit relates to both our body and our mind.  

In upcoming posts, I'll say more about how our instincts, desires, drives, emotions, and some of our self-talk are matter of our spirit.

Knowing in Our Spirt

I think we know in our spirit more often than we acknowledge. It's understandable since we associate knowing with our brain and mind and tend to dismiss other ways of knowing.

Knowing in spirit is located in our chest. Place your hand over your breast bone. When we know in our spirit we feel it in and around this area of our chest. Sometimes it's so strong that the feeling radiates up into our throat or down into our solar plexus.

The feeling might be a burning sensation. It might also be a tightness or fullness. It has an immediate emotional charge to it. The emotion varies according to our knowing. It can be fear, anger, hurt, sadness, relief, excitement, happiness, ecstatic joy, or a mix of emotions.

Knowing in our spirit usually happens in a flash, not as the result of reaching a conclusion after a reasoned cognitive process. If intuitive knowing is a flash of cognitive knowing in our mind, knowing in our spirit is a flash of physical-emotional knowing in our chest, in and around our thymus gland. Hence the Ancient Greek association of our spirit (thumos) with our thymus gland.

Thumotic Spirituality: Basic Practices

Some of the basic practices of Thumotic spirituality include the following:

- Mindfulness of one's own spirit and that of others

- Awareness of the current condition of one's own spirit and that of others

- Awareness of spirit to spirit connections

- Knowing in one's spirit

- Identifying one's own life-denying activities and diminishing them

- Identifying one's own life-affirming activities and developing them

NOTE: Affirming life in a life-denying culture is not a matter of 10 easy steps. There is no short cut. There's not even a map.

Little, if anything, is more challenging than diminishing life-denying habits and developing life-affirming habits.

Engaging in the challenge is an elitist endeavor that demands heroic effort. Few Westerners take it on. Fewer succeed.

Who is Thumotic Spirituality for? Part 3 of 3

Thumotic spirituality is for those who naturally prefer-

Avenging rather than forgiving wrongs done to themselves and their family and friends

Laughing at their challenges rather than crying to be rescued

Eating, drinking, and being merry rather than fasting, abstaining, and being sullen

Fulfilling rather than denying themselves

Sex to celibacy

Contributing more to their community than they take.

Helping those temporarily unable to help themselves rather than giving alms to the habitually poor

Healing the sick and injured who can regain their self-reliance and value to others rather than artificially prolonging those who cannot

Honoring the aged rather than marginalizing them 

Dying with dignity rather than prolonging a meaningless life

Who is Thumotic Spirituality for? Part 2 of 3

Thumotic spirituality is for those who naturally prefer-

Being equal to others rather than beneath or over them

Living in harmony with rather than harming others

Walking by sight not blind faith

Resisting harm rather than submitting to it

Loyalty based on blood and friendship rather than religion

Defending themselves and those they love rather than turning the other cheek

Working and contributing to others rather than remaining poor at a cost to others

Being free rather than a servant to others

Making their own decisions rather than complying to others

Who is Thumotic Spirituality for? Part 1 of 3

Thumotic spirituality is for those who naturally prefer-

Affirming all life to denying it

Becoming mature rather than childlike

Training and teaching children to entertaining them

Celebrating diversity to suppressing it

Learning over ignorance 

Inner strength over meekness

Being challenged rather than coddled

Self-reliance over dependence on others

Becoming full of spirit rather than poor in spirit

Thumotic Spirituality: The Basics

Thumotic spirituality is a collection of ideas and practices related to thumos: spirit, that which makes alive.

As such it is spirit-centered, life-affirming, Western-rooted, and empirically-based.

It is spirit-focussed in that it is a collection of ideas and practices related to spirit.

It is life-affirming because it is focussed on spirit, that which makes alive.

It is Western-rooted because Ancient Greece, the source of thumos, is the foundation of Western culture.

It is empirically-based in that, like the Ancient Greek concept of thumos, it is based on observation and experimentation rather than metaphysical or religious beliefs. 

Spirit-related Connections, Part 4

What do we share when we share our spirit?

We share "that which makes us alive" and its condition.

If our spirit is well, troubled, low, high, strong or weak we share it.

Our spirit and its condition radiates from us in our-

- Presence

- Posture

- Affect

- Actions

- Thoughts

- Words

- Intentions

Spirit-related connections are not just human to human. They are human to other animals, plants, and all other beings. They are animal to other animals, plants, and all other beings. They are plant to other plants and all other beings. All beings share their spirit with all other beings.

The spirit of another enters our eyes, ears, nose, mouth, and skin. It enters our mind. It enters of spirit.

 

We cannot not share our spirit and its condition. We cannot not connect with the spirit of others.

The question is whether or not we are aware of our spirit-related connections.

Spirit-related Connections, Part 3

How do we connect spirit to spirit?

It comes naturally for some. For others it's learned.

For some it's immediate. For others it develops over time.

Some friends and lovers share a single spirit. It's not the same as feeling like we found our soul mate. It's different.

Sometimes twins share the same spirit.

Couples in which one died and the other died shortly after shared the same spirit.

The condition of spirit is the same for both.

What keeps one alive keeps the other alive too.

Two bodies, one spirit. 

Spirit-related Connections, Part 2

In what ways can we connect spirit to spirit?

Our spirits can connect by-

1. Becoming one and joining in unison. When we do this one spirit animates us. If one is dispirited, so is the other. If one inspirited, so is the other. If one dies, so does the other. There is no sense of a separate spirit.

 

2. Conflicting and clashing in dissonance with each other. Sometimes the clash and conflict keeps us connected to each other. Other times it repels us away from each other. Either way we're connected with each other in the clash and conflict. Even enemies are in a relationship. They need each other in order to exist.

  

3. Harmonizing with each other. When we do this we both maintain a sense of our own unique spirit but harmonize well with each other. We're different but connected in a pleasing way.

We do well to be mindful of how our spirit connects with other human beings. Then expand outward to include other animals, plants, the wind, water, the earth and stones, the sun, moon, and stars, everything.

Spirit-related Connections

Hand shakes, pats on the back, hugs, kisses, and sex are just a few ways we can connect with each other physically.

Thinking the same thoughts, holding the same opinions and beliefs, feeling affection for each other, falling in lust or love with each other are just a few ways we can connect with each other psychologically. 

What about connecting thumotically; that is, spirit to spirit?

How can that which makes me alive connect with that which makes you alive?

What happens when we connect spirit to spirit?

I'll be exploring spirit-related connections in upcoming blog posts

Contra Transcendence

FAQs about Transcendence

Transcendence is about rising beyond one's self (ego) and the world.

To what does one transcend? It's given various names: God, Heaven, Higher Self, Nirvana, Brahma, Enlightenment, the All, Ultimate Being, and the Source. They're all religious, metaphysical, mental concepts.

How does one transcend one's self? There are various ways: living a morally right life, silence, solitude, intention, just being, meditation, prayer, mantra, and deep relaxation. More serious methods include self denial, fasting, vigils, poverty, and martyrdom.  All involve withdrawing from the world and life, closing one's eyes, and turning inward. For some, death is the ultimate way to transcend one's self and the world.

Who or what does the transcending? How can one's self transcend one's self? What experiences transcendence if not one's self? Some believe that the eternal soul does the transcending. Others believe that transcendence is a metaphor for becoming aware that there really is no difference between us and ultimate being. In reality we are ultimate being, so they believe.

Why would one seek transcendence? Because it's believed to be reality, our true being, and our true home. All else is a fallen state, ignorance, darkness, unenlightenment, an illusion.

My View: Not Transcendence But Engagement

In my view, transcendence is the apotheosis of fiction: escapism deified..

It's an imaginary tale one tells oneself in order to avoid oneself and the world.

Those with low evaluations of themselves and the world indulge in this form of entertainment taken too seriously.

Those who value life and this world have no need for transcendence. They practice the opposite: engagement.

They're in and of this world. They are their egos.

They keep their eyes and other senses open. They live by sight not by faith. 

They accept and embrace life as it is and cower not from living it.

They welcome, seek, and cherish the mystery, beauty, and pleasures of life and this world. They accept the tragedies of life and its pains. They accept life's mortality. 

They rise, not to avoid or escape, but to face life's many challenges. When they're overwhelmed, they take refuge, rest, recover as best they can, and resume living the adventure that is their life.

With family, friends, companions, strangers, and enemies, they co-author the adventure of their life.

Whenever and however their story ends, it ends. No one really knows what happens next, except decomposing and continued life in the bones, blood, and memories of the living.

It's called non-fictional living. 

Spiritual Journey

For some "spiritual journey" refers to their process of becoming a more faithful adherent to their religion or god.

For others "spiritual journey" refers their process of becoming enlightened.

For me, the first is more accurately called a religious journey and the second a psychological journey.

A spiritual journey is about neither religion nor psychology. It's about spirit.

It begins with sex, conception and birth, develops into being aware of our own spirit, continues with learning how best to care for our own spirit, matures in being aware of other's spirits and taking good care them, and ends in death...unless there is something more.