In my opinion, there are five kinds of “spirituality”: spirituality of the first kind, spirituality of the second kind, spirituality of the third kind (not to be confused with the movie of a similar name), spirituality of the fourth kind, and spirituality of the fifth kind.
The first kind of spirituality I call Mysticism. Wikipedia defines mysticism as a multitude “…of distinctive practices, discourses, texts, institutions, traditions, and experiences aimed at human transformation, variously defined in different traditions.”
The second kind of spirituality I call Spiritualistism. I define this as people who believe they can talk to spirits with or without a human medium. This definition includes extreme “pot heads” and dopers.
The third kind of spirituality I call Hate Mongerism. These are the people who profess to follow a religion of love and peace, but preach intolerance, hatred and violence. A subcategory of Hate Mongerism is Demonism. These are preachers who demonize people that have a different culture, lifestyle, or belief system; but do not preach hatred towards those demonized.
The fourth kind of spirituality I call Spiritsulaity or just plain Alcoholism. (Enough said about that.)
Spirituality of the fifth kind is what I have. (Hint: it is none of the above.)
© 26 January 2015
About the Author
When united with my mother and stepfather two years later in 1958, I lived first at Emerald Bay and then at South Lake Tahoe, California, graduating from South Tahoe High School in 1966. After three tours of duty with the Air Force, I moved to Denver, Colorado where I lived with my wife and four children until her passing away from complications of breast cancer four days after the 9-11 terrorist attack.
I came out as a gay man in the summer of 2010. I find writing these memories to be therapeutic.
My story blog is TheTahoeBoy.Blogspot.com
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