spirit is a supernatural being, often but not exclusively a non-physical entity; such as
a ghost, fairy, or angel.[1] The concepts of a person's spirit and soul, often also overlap, as
both are either contrasted with or given ontological priority over the body and both are
believed to survive bodily death in some religions,[2] and "spirit" can also have the sense of
"ghost", i.e. a manifestation of the spirit of a deceased person. In English Bibles, "the Spirit"
(with a capital "S"), specifically denotes the Holy Spirit.
Spirit is often used metaphysically to refer to the consciousness or personality.
Historically, it was also used to refer to a "subtle" as opposed to "gross" material substance,
as in the famous last paragraph of Sir Isaac Newton's Principia Mathematica.[3]
EtymologyEdit
The English word "spirit" comes from the Latinspiritus, meaning "breath", but also "spirit,
soul, courage, vigor", ultimately from a Proto-Indo-European *(s)peis. It is distinguished
from Latin anima, "soul" (which nonetheless also derives from an Indo-European root
meaning "to breathe", earliest form *h2enh1-).[4] In Greek, this distinction exists
between pneuma (πνεῦμα), "breath, motile air, spirit," and psykhē (ψυχή), "soul"[1] (even
though the latter term, ψῡχή = psykhē/psūkhē, is also from an Indo-European root meaning
"to breathe": *bhes-, zero grade *bhs-devoicing in proto-Greek to *phs-, resulting in
historical-period Greek ps- in psūkhein, "to breathe", whence psūkhē, "spirit", "soul").[5]
The word "spirit" came into Middle English via Old French. The distinction between soul
and spirit also developed in the Abrahamic religions: Arabic nafs ( )نفسopposite rūħ (;)روح
Hebrew neshama ( נְ שָׁ מָׁ הnəšâmâh) or nephesh ֶֶ֫נפֶשnép̄ eš (in Hebrew neshamacomes from
the root NŠM or "breath") opposite ruach (ַ רּוחrúaħ). (Note, however, that in Semitic just as
in Indo-European, this dichotomy has not always been as neat historically as it has come to
be taken over a long period of development: Both ( ֶֶ֫נפֶשroot )נפשand ַ( רּוחroot )רוח, as well
as cognate words in various Semitic languages, including Arabic, also preserve meanings
involving misc. air phenomena: "breath", "wind", and even "odour").[6][7][8]
Spiritual and metaphysical usageEdit
In spiritual and metaphysical terms, "spirit" has acquired a number of meanings:
An incorporeal but ubiquitous, non-quantifiable substance or energy present individually in all
living things.[citation needed]Unlike the concept of souls (often regarded as eternal and sometimes
believed to pre-exist the body) a spirit develops and grows as an integral aspect of a living being.[9]
A daemon, sprite, or ghost. People usually conceive of a ghost as a wandering spirit from a being no
longer living, having survived the death of the body yet maintaining at least vestiges
of mind and consciousness.
In religion and spirituality, the respiration of a human has for obvious reasons become seen as
strongly linked with the very occurrence of life. Spirit, in this sense, means the thing that separates
a living body from a corpse—and usually implies intelligence, consciousness, and sentience.[citation
needed]
Latter-day Saint prophet Joseph Smith Jr.taught that the concept of spirit as incorporeal or without
substance was incorrect: "There is no such thing as immaterial matter. All spirit is matter, but it is
more fine or pure, and can only be discerned by purer eyes."[10]
Various forms of animism, such as Japan's Shinto and African traditional religion, focus on invisible
beings that represent or connect with plants, animals, or landforms(kami)[citation needed]: translators
usually employ the English word "spirit" when trying to express the idea of such entities.
Individual spirits envisaged as interconnected with all other spirits and with "The Spirit" (singular
and capitalized).[citation needed] This concept relates to theories of a unified spirituality, to universal
consciousness and to some concepts of Deity. In this scenario all separate "spirits", when connected,
form a greater unity, the Spirit, which has an identity separate from its elements plus
a consciousness and intellect greater than its elements; an ultimate, unified, non-dualawareness
or force of life combining or transcending all individual units of consciousness. The experience of
such a connection can become a primary basis for spiritual belief. The term spirit occurs in this
sense in (to name but a few) Anthroposophy, Aurobindo, A Course In Miracles, Hegel, Ken Wilber,
and Meher Baba (though in his teachings, "spirits" are only apparently separate from each other
and from "The Spirit.")[11] In this use, the term seems conceptually identical to Plotinus's "The One"
and Friedrich Schelling's "Absolute". Similarly, according to the panentheistic/pantheistic view,
Spirit equates to essence that can manifest itself as mind/soul through any level in
pantheistic hierarchy/holarchy, such as through a mind/soul of a single cell (with very primitive,
elemental consciousness), or through a human or animal mind/soul (with consciousness on a level
of organic synergy of an individual human/animal), or through a (superior) mind/soul with
synergetically extremely complex/sophisticated consciousness of whole galaxies involving all sub-
levels, all emanating (since the superior mind/soul operates non-dimensionally, or trans-
dimensionally) from the one Spirit.
Christian spiritual theology can use the term "Spirit" to describe God, or aspects of God — as in the
"Holy Spirit", referring to a Triune God (Trinity) (cf Gospel of Matthew28:19).
Pneumatology is the study of spiritual beings and phenomena, especially the spiritual aspect of
human beings and the interactions between humans and God.
Christian Science uses "Spirit" as one of the seven synonyms for God, as in: "Principle; Mind; Soul;
Spirit; Life; Truth; Love"[12]
According to C. G. Jung (in a lecture delivered to the literary Society of Augsburg, October 20, 1926,
on the theme of “Nature and Spirit”):
The connection between spirit and life is one of those problems involving factors of
such complexity that we have to be on our guard lest we ourselves get caught in the
net of words in which we seek to ensnare these great enigmas. For how can we
bring into the orbit of our thought those limitless complexities of life which we call
"Spirit" or "Life" unless we clothe them in verbal concepts, themselves mere
counters of the intellect? The mistrust of verbal concepts, inconvenient as it is,
nevertheless seems to me to be very much in place in speaking of fundamentals.
"Spirit" and "Life" are familiar enough words to us, very old acquaintances in fact,
pawns that for thousands of years have been pushed back and forth on the thinker's
chessboard. The problem must have begun in the grey dawn of time, when someone
made the bewildering discovery that the living breath which left the body of the
dying man in the last death-rattle meant more than just air in motion. It can scarcely
be an accident onomatopoeic words like ruach, ruch, roho (Hebrew, Arabic, Swahili)
mean ‘spirit’ no less clearly than the Greek πνεύμα and the Latin spiritus.[13]
