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For other uses of the term spirit, see Spirit (disambiguation).

The English word "spirit" comes from the Latin spiritus, meaning breath. In religion and spirituality, the respiration of the human being has for obvious reasons been strongly linked with the very occurrence of life. A similar significance has been attributed to human blood. Spirit has thus evolved to denote that which separates a living body from a corpse, but can be used metaphorically (she performed the piece with spirit or she put up a spirited defence) where it is a synonym for such words as 'vivacity'.

In its religious context it has attained a number of meanings:

1. A ghost, daemon or sprite
2. The nature and essential substance of human souls, through which each is connected to all others, and by the experience of such connection is a primary basis for spiritual belief. In theological terms, a "spirit" (singular lowercase) is the deepest part of the soul of man, and the transmitting organ by which human beings can contact God.
3. The Spirit (singular capitalized) refers to the concept that all connected "spirits" form a greater unity, which has both an identity separate from its elements plus a consciousness and intellect greater than its elements. The Spirit is also used to describe God.

In Western theology, it is referred to as the Holy Spirit, referring to a Triune God (Trinity): "The result of God reaching to man by the Father as the source, the Son as the course ("the Way"), and through the Spirit as the transmission."

In more general spiritualistic terms, it refers to an ultimate, unified, non-dual awareness or force of life combining or transcending all individual souls or individual units of consciousness.

The term spirit has been used in this sense by at least Anthroposophy, Aurobindo, A Course In Miracles, Hegel, and Ken Wilber. In this use, the term is conceptually identical to Plotinus's "One" and Friedrich Schelling's "Absolute." Similar to Greek pneuma and Sanskrit akasha. See soul for a more detailed description.

Contents 1 God as Spirit, or spirit as part of God? 2 Etymology 3 See also 4 External links

God as Spirit, or spirit as part of God?

Philosopher and anthropologist David Abram has expressed that the understanding of spirits in most indigenous cultures are primarily modes of intelligence or awareness that do not possess a human form, which is the source of the common misunderstanding of and generalizations of animism in the West: Abrams writes, "Many of the earliest Western students of these other customs were Christian missionaries all too ready to see occult ghosts and immaterial phantoms where the tribespeople were simply offering their respect to the local winds." (The Spell of the Sensuous, pg. 13).

There is both divergence and differentiation in Western theology regarding the Trinity as a multi-aspect of God — particular and concepts of God that in may ways similar to polytheism and animism. In other words, there is a relation between animism and polytheism, and hence a direct correlation between the monotheism-polytheism rift: Non-Western cultures may view "The Spirit" as equal or identical to "God," as an infinite and non corporeal entity —any corporeal aspects of God are referred to as "deities." On the other hand, Western religions tend to view The Spirit as the vessel by which God is in connection with man, and God (or the Godhead) as the head of that unified spiritual body. The two approaches appear to differ only slightly, but the basis for their difference lies in the spiritual concept of "body image," — that "man was made in God's image" and therefore God must be of a form resembling man, and further, that any image of God which are not similarly based on man's image is to be rejected.

Etymology

In the Bible, the word "ruach" (רוח; "wind") is most commonly translated as the spirit, whose essence is divine (see Holy Spirit. Alternately the word nephesh is commonly used. Nephesh, as referred to by Kabbalists, is one of the three parts of the human soul, where "nephesh" (animal) refers to the physical being and its animal instincts. Similarly, both the Danish and the Chinese language uses the term "breath" to refer to the spirit.

See also

• Angel
• Atman
• Deva_(deity)
• Brahman
• Cryptid
• Daemon (mythology)
• Soul
• Ghost
• Legendary creature
• Cryptozoology
• Monster
• List of fictional species
• List of legendary creatures
• Legendary creatures of the Argentine Northwest region
• Book of Imaginary Beings

External links

• www.GhostFinders.co.uk
• Encyclopedia Mythica's Bestiary

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