Spiritual Exercises for Atheists

[rug]

January 5, 2012 at 3:44 pm
Eric Steinhart

Spiritual exercises (askesis) are practical activities for mental self-impowerment. They are intended to facilitate successful achievement by increasing the degree to which the self is mentally or emotionally prepared to perform. Spiritual exercises are not magic. Spiritual exercises are distinct from magic because they focus on causing changes in the self while magic focuses on causing changes in the external world.

Spiritual exercises typically involve mental preparation for performance through visualization or emotional preparation for performance through arousal regulation. Visualization involves working with mental imagery while arousal regulation involves conscious control of physiological and emotional arousal (it involves neocortical control of the limbic system and autonomic nervous system).

Arousal regulation is often done when the self is confronted with a challenge in which the outcome is uncertain, valuable, and not amenable to skill. Successful performance through such challenges often requires fine-tuning of arousal. On the one hand, arousal that is too high is experienced as anxiety. Excessively high arousal may impede performance. If the self is too strongly aroused, then arousal regulation techniques can be used to decrease arousal. On the other hand, arousal that is too low may be experience as depression or despair of success. Excessively low arousal can also impede performance. If the self is too weakly aroused, then techniques can be employed to increase arousal.

Although there are many types of spiritual exercises, Wiccans and many other groups focus on three many types: meditation, visualization, and breathing. The British Wiccans like the Farrars and Buckland either do not discuss these techniques at all or mention them only briefly. These techniques seem to develop in American Wicca. These spiritual exercises are very briefly described below.

http://freethoughtblogs.com/camelswithhammers/2012/01/05/spiritual-exercises-for-atheists/

[Scuba]

1. Spiritual exercises for atheists is oxymoronic. n/t

[bananas]

4. No it isn't.

See the responses in this thread, especially subthreads 5 and 9, and posts 26, 45, 47, and 56 : http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=263x32339

[MineralMan]

2. Wiccans, the one group mentioned in your excerpt,

are not atheists. Meditation, visualization, and breathing are not necessarily spiritual exercises, either. I suggest that your title for this article is fail.

[rug]

9. I suggest you click the link. It's not my title.

Nor are either the author or the blog Wiccan.

[dmallind]

3. I guess vapid self-help blather applies to the godless too.

at least as well as to the godbotherers. How well that actually is does not impress me much.

[edhopper]

5. I would not label any of these

spiritual exercises. The seem to be mental exercises.

[cleanhippie]

6. Yeah, but "mental exercises" doesn't have that woo-ish ring to it.

[backscatter712]

7. That's how I think of them.

What is "spiritual" anyways? Smells like woo-woo to me.

These are mental exercises.

[tama]

10. Why not physical/material/sensual exercises?

What's mind, what's space-time?

[GliderGuider]

8. Meditation can be good for everyone, regardless of their spiritual orientation.

The combination of meditation and depth psychology can remove many of the mental walls that compartmentalize our inner psychological landscape. As those barriers dissolve, various parts of one's psyche that were previously isolated are allowed to unite, and that process brings a welcome sense of being whole, complete and integrated.

What's fascinating is that this process is the psychological analog of what I consider to be the core spiritual experience - the dissolution of boundaries between the self and the rest of universe. Penetrating these conceptual walls of separation gives rise to the oceanic feeling of oneness that characterizes many mystical experiences.

As our inner psychological boundaries are removed, the outer boundaries seem to fall away as well, which is why meditation and inner work is an integral part of many spiritual traditions.

So while the exercises in the OP are indeed more psychological than spiritual, they should be undertaken very cautiously by atheists - they may lead to inadvertent spiritual experiences.

[tama]

11. Just noticed

your sig line. I've often said that we don't need to solve problems, but to stop causing them.

[GliderGuider]

16. The deeper I looked into the global clusterfuck of ecology, energy and human culture

the more I noticed that most "solutions" in all these areas just seemed to kick the can further down the road - they generally re-appeared later as the sources of even bigger problems.

As you can imagine, the view that we might be better off in the long run if we accepted problems rather than trying to solve them can draw unfavourable commentary from many people...

[Evoman]

12. Ugh....can't I just have sex instead?

Its easier....two minutes and a bottle of lotion. 1 minute if my girlfriend isn't busy. All this business about arousal has my juices flowing....except the word spirituality makes me soft.

[rug]

13. And you wonder why she meditates.

[Evoman]

14. Maybe it's because I have cancer and I could die and we can't have relations because I'm going

through radiation?


Haha....just fucking with you. The good thing about having cancer is that you can play the cancer card to win any discussion and make people feel sorry for you. Other than that, cancer pretty much sucks. Especially the no sex part. See what you did to me? Coming in here with your arousal talk.......damn it Rug, a little more sensitivity would be nice lol.

[rug]

17. Is that true? Damn, I wish you strength in this.

[Evoman]

18. Yeah, Stage 3 colon cancer. Going through chemo and rads at the moment.

Sucks, but like I said, at least I can play the cancer card in online discussion

[rug]

19. .

[tama]

21. Near Death Experiences

can come in many forms and as they say, often make one more "spiritual" - so let's hope in your case you learn not to go soft because of that silly woowoo word, but learn to woo your partner with hard and moist tantric sessions lasting tender eternities...

[Odin2005]

15. 2 minutes? you are doing it wrong!

[tama]

20. Yes you can

orgasm and meditation are very similar mental states.

[pink-o]

22. Having experienced both...

I must respectfully disagree!