Wisdom Notes on Spirituality

The Spiritual Path

The links in the table on the left take you to sub-headings on this page.

Psychology has become the means to explore how good and evil really function. This is a modern task. Up until the middle of the 19th century, psychology theory was little more than anecdotes and aphorisms (Aesop, Rochefoucauld, Montaigne), so attempts to make sense of existence depended mostly on philosophy (metaphysics and morality) and meditation. Unfortunately, clear thinking and meditational/psychic abilities do not remove limitations in character. Hence even when a person received spiritual inspiration and/or enlightenment, his resulting character was still flawed. All that happened was that his new inspired state masked his old limited state. His character limitations remained in the subconscious mind.

The only way to remove character deficiencies is to directly address them, and so modern psychology was born on a tidal wave of spiritual energy permeating Western society from the last half of the 19th century. Hence my belief is that every spiritual seeker nowadays has to absorb enough psychology theory to address his limitations, and combine it with any traditional approach to spirituality that attracts him. No doubt it will take a rather long time to spread psychology theories into the East’s way of practice, but eventually it will happen. What this implies, at least for the Western world at the moment, is that the old idea that spirituality was something to be developed in isolation or in a monastery has now to be regarded as being out-of-date. As Aquarius begins to dawn, the person’s idea of spirituality has to be practised in daily life within society, because that is where his character limitations become visible and identifiable.

My Psychological Analysis of Spirituality

In this book I use my psychological knowledge to produce a psychological analysis of spirituality (mainly the ways in which the subconscious mind affects the pilgrim’s progress). For comparison, other writers, especially those presenting Eastern ideas, give a psychic analysis of spirituality (that is, the place and roles of meditation, contemplation and visualisation). My kind of analysis has only been possible since the birth of modern psychology.

To overcome the hurdles that appear to us when we attempt to live an ethical and noble life, we have to investigate the subconscious mind. We need to investigate the dark side of the mind. In particular, we investigate states of mind that are usually condemned as being immoral. This investigation does not fit well with traditional religious needs. Psychology is not a propitious companion to orthodox religion, though it is in tune with New Age spirituality. Most religions propound strong moral codes and denounce negative states of mind. Hence such religions function to bolster the management of negative states of mind, but inhibit the awareness and investigation of them. It is not a coincidence that the present development of psychology in the West only happened once church Christianity went into decline. Freud’s exploration of “deviant” sexuality would have been impossible 200 years earlier. Religions have their place, but need to be counter-balanced by psychology.

When I was 19 there was an upsurge of rebelliousness in me and this has stayed with me all my life. The lasting imprint of my rebelliousness is that I am prepared to challenge all received wisdom if my personal experiences of life do not validate that wisdom.

I have had many different positive spiritual experiences, but I usually get them as one-off events.  This has enabled me to acquire a broad outlook on higher states of mind. My approach to higher states is an intuitive one, but intuition is insufficient just by itself. So I spent years studying all kinds of spiritual and non-spiritual experiences in order to become familiar with the variety of ways by which the mind expresses itself. I use this knowledge to produce new ideas when I analyse the results of my intuitions. Overall, I take an intuitive understanding of an experience and analyse it so as to try and produce a rational understanding as well.

Rationality complements intuition, and both should be used by the modern New Age seeker. The function of intuition is to give the big picture or panoramic view of any topic, whilst rationality gives the step-by-step logical details by which the big picture works. Intuition is not infallible. Interestingly, people who have a training in the sciences and mathematics can detect the limitations to intuition, whilst teachers who have not had a scientific training often believe that the intuitive picture cannot be challenged.

During my 30s, I used to prefer meditation as my main spiritual practice, but I was never very good at it. One important result of my practice was the identification of the three feelings. The positive and the negative feelings were not too hard to detect, because there is an “energy buzz” with them; by following the buzz I could follow the feeling. However there is no buzz with the neutral feeling, so it is much harder to detect. Then one night in my late-30s, a dream told me that meditation was not going to work for me. My path was to be a new one. I abandoned meditation, even though I didn’t know what my new path was. Only years later did I realise it referred to the development of deep psychological awareness in myself. So I remember my few years of meditation with fondness.

The psychological path of self-analysis that I have been on since the 1980s means that I know a lot about the negative side of spirituality – the tests and trials, sometimes called the via doloroso, the way of sorrow. I have had to work through seemingly-unending trials and hurdles, most of which I have failed. So I spent much of the following 20 years analysing failure: this has taught me how the hidden aspects of the mind function.

Science and Religion

My main academic training is in physics, and the result of this is that I have a lasting fascination with the world of the atom. However, I believe that modern science has gone down blind alleys in its descriptions of reality, whether of the atom or of general cosmology. I also have an affinity with mysticism. In my analysis of spirituality I use a mystical approach set within a scientific frame of mind. Hence I use both aspects of the mind, the rational and the intuitive.

What we can understand of the world depends on our attunements to it. I have had a range of paranormal and psychic experiences, enough to know that the world of science is much too narrow. On the other hand, the same experiences have led me to understand that some basic traditional ideas on reality, found in theosophy, Buddhism, and shamanism, are also distortions. I am an independent thinker (or what used to be called a free-thinker), and this disposition enables me to see the limitations of both science and religion. Free-thinkers are rare nowadays, or perhaps it may be more true to say that thinkers are so overawed by the successes of science that they do not dare challenge its assumptions.

The major difficulty with understanding reality is that the usual paradox applies. Those who have the ability to understand reality (scientists) don’t usually have the necessary spiritual experiences, whilst those who have the experiences (mystics, meditators and contemplatives) usually lack the ability to conceptualise reality.

At the time that Christianity first arose, the Middle East was a cauldron of spiritual ferment and activity. Everything seemed possible, and rival teachers and groups vied with each other, offering plenty of spiritual choice. We might think that it was a good time to live, that era. But I believe that the reality was very different. I think that it was more or less like the stresses of modern times. Anything great that appears within a religious or national context always comes within a backdrop of social turmoil and unrest. It is the turmoil that makes people discontented with the status quo and willing to try something different. It is only times of social turmoil that prevent orthodoxy from stifling the birth and flowering of new ideas and new social movements.

We can see today how both academic science and orthodox religion fight against the introduction of new and revolutionary ideas. Scientific orthodoxy is obtained by excluding any examination of ideas contrary to academic conformity. Despite this narrow-mindedness within science and religion, which one is better for the modern world?  A lot of confusion is generated when comparing religion and science. It is usually assumed that they conflict with each other, so that only one of them can be true. This is inaccurate. In fact they are complementary. So there is no essential reason why both cannot be embraced by each person.

Explanations of reality have two separate issues to describe: how reality functions (analysis of cause and effect issues) and why it functions (analysis of purpose, values and meaning). “How reality functions” is the domain of science, and “why reality functions” is the domain of religion. When properly considered, there should be no conflict between them. Science has nothing relevant to say on personal values and ethics. Religion has nothing relevant to say on the results of science, though it can have a lot to say on the ethical use of technology.

This view of religion and science is overly optimistic. We need to take into account the long-term consequences of each approach to reality. What we see in history is the working out of beliefs that begin as a means of uniting and stimulating a small group of people, and finally become monolithic and repressive (they tolerate no rivals) over many people. For example, the emperor is the supreme ruler and law-giver of his tribe, and eventually he becomes god of all the people in his region. The chief bishop of a region is the ruler of his people’s religious belief, but in order to dispel rival believers he has to become pope or archbishop so that he can rule continents. The historical way of dealing with monolithic belief structures is to set up a rival belief structure that eventually becomes just as big. 

The overwhelming power of the ancient Romans led to the founding of its eventual rival, Christianity. With the demise of Rome, the Catholic Church expanded into a monolithic system, and was challenged by the medieval concept of chivalry. With the emergence of nation states in Europe from the end of the English-French wars of the 15th century, chivalry faded away. The supremacy of the Church was then challenged by the emergence of a secular exploration of reality, what we now know as science. As the Church faded in importance from the 19th century onwards, so science has become monolithic.

What can challenge monolithic beliefs and power?  Only the free flow of information. In today’s world that means upholding the freedom of the internet from governmental control.

Will the challenging ever stop?  The challenging is the price we pay for the generation of new ideas. The challenges make us search ourselves for answers. If we want ideas, then we have to face struggle; if we want peace, then we will lose the ability to generate new ideas. This is why utopias never last, at least on planet Earth. However, if we never dream of a utopia, how can it come true, if only for a brief moment in time?

Are the Answers within Us?

I suppose that most people who have started a spiritual search have not known why they begin searching or what they needed to search for. We look for answers, but where are those answers?  It seems to be that we cannot find answers until we first adequately identify what questions we really need to ask. These questions are not the obvious ones that we may think of at first, but are hidden by the confusion in our mind. We gradually begin to ask the right questions when we learn what aspects of spirituality we attune to, and what aspects leave us cold. For example, ritualistic spirituality turns me off.

Are the answers within us?  Ah, this issue confuses many people. Our path through life is within us, but the answers to the barriers and hurdles that block our path are not always within us. Obviously if we are facing traditional problems, such as ways to improve our meditational ability, then there are traditional answers. However, many of the problems facing modern people do not have traditional answers. In particular the spiritual seeker finds that the urgent problems confronting him which do not have traditional answers are mostly psychological ones.

The journey that the seeker is on can be in one of two directions. If he is a traditionalist, he sees his journey as a return to the source. For him there is no significance in the complexity of modern life; he has little to learn from it and so he devalues it. He looks backward to a previous golden age. His journey is a return journey. The other direction is a forward journey. The modern seeker embraces the complexities of modern life – the present is just as valid as the past. He accepts that the present life is a chance to learn new lessons and develop new abilities for expressing the spiritual life. His journey is one of unfoldment and enrichment. He is on a forward journey into the unknown future – for him the golden age lies in the future. So we can say that for the return journey the answers usually lie within, but for the forward journey the answers usually do not yet exist.

The modern seeker finds that we have to learn the answers by analysing our experiences – both the “good” and the “bad” experiences. What we find is that our path through life is shaped by the way we put value on our experiences. We label some experiences as being good, and so we desire to repeat them. We label some experiences as being bad, and we wish to avoid any repeats of them. This process of valuation has the effect of moulding our character. Once we reach a point in our personal evolution where we have acquired a sufficient degree of sensitivity (necessary for us to become creative) we then become more affected by negative experiences than by positive ones, and so our life becomes more shaped by sorrow than by happiness.

Faith or Wisdom ?

The spiritual journey changes a person in some ways. What confuses many people about change is what happens to them when they acquire a teacher. This brings up the issue of faith and what it does to a person. The person who gets converted to a particular sectarian belief system seems to have drastically changed his character, but this is an illusion. All that happens is that the person re-orientates his beliefs about reality. Previously he had felt that the stresses of life were becoming too much for him and so he had focused on the negative side of things. Hence his negative beliefs became enhanced whilst his positive beliefs became buried in the background of his mind. But now he has found a teacher he focuses on the positive aspects of the religious sect and his negative beliefs retreat to the background of his mind. Suddenly he seems to have abundant energy, especially with anything to do with the sect, and life seems good for a time (but only in respect to his association with the sect and its members). When I developed faith in two yoga teachers, I was amazed at the energy I had; previously, as an introvert, I was always aware of a lack of energy. The person seems to have been “reborn”. The fallacy within all this is revealed when the person becomes disillusioned with the sect. Then all his old negative beliefs resurface as his positive beliefs retreat once more into the background. Of course, if the person never suffers disillusionment, then he will keep his new positive orientation. In other words, religious sects do not actually change people, though they can inspire people. The sect’s function is purely to change what beliefs the person focuses on. The only effective way to change is through the trial and error of normal life or more deliberately by using psychology.

What drove me to find faith in a teacher was the need to find something that my parents did not give me, and so in the eyes of the person the teacher becomes the symbol of the loving and benevolent parent or guide. What I realised much later was that my parents did not validate me, and so I searched for something which could validate me, and that was faith.

Many things went wrong in my attempts to practice a spiritual way of life. Even when I found faith in two yoga teachers, my problems did not go away, though they became camouflaged by my new faith. I found that faith does not remove the causes of problems. My faith in my teachers ended in my late 30s and I went on the round of exploring other groups to see if I could find a replacement for my faith. I had no luck. Then in my early 40s my inner guide gave me a choice: I could focus on a life of faith or I could pursue spiritual wisdom. I could not do both. Faith centres on devotion, whilst wisdom centres on empiricism. Since I was obsessed with finding out why I always seemed to fail, I chose wisdom. What I learned early on is that the mindset that seeks faith is completely different from the mindset that seeks wisdom. Hence faith and wisdom are mutually exclusive, at least in the early stages of spiritual growth. One of the reasons for this is that in order to acquire wisdom the person has to dissect and analyse states of mind like faith and devotion.

Having chosen the pursuit of wisdom, my inner drive propelled me into empiricism, exploring ways to understand the subconscious mind. So began my psycho-analysis, which I did on my own, without using any therapist to help me. It developed my ability to be a thinker. It produced some very intense experiences over several years as I was cast into various psychological hells and had to think my way out of them. There were no short cuts. In order to think my way out of my troubles, I had to do an enormous amount of reading and studying on all aspects of human nature and relationships. I read hundreds of books in a few short years. Overall, this was a highly unpleasant path through life, but I ended up with the understanding that I needed.

Wisdom or faith?  It is a choice that each person has to make, whether to attempt to understand the mind or to follow a life of faith. Each path goes in a different direction to the other path. However, neither is better than the other. Ultimately it comes down to what meaning the person seeks in life. It all depends on personal preference, on personal predilection. I have tried both paths. Currently I prefer wisdom. Once I have absorbed all the wisdom that I can in this life, then I may return to faith and devotion.

Copyright © 2026 Ian Heath
All Rights Reserved

The copyright is mine, and the articles are free to use. They can be reproduced
anywhere, so long as the source is acknowledged.