Women and Spirituality

The topic selection for this paper is women and spirituality within culture diversity. Current research shows that there is a worldwide need for women to image themselves as spiritual beings. There are intellectual connections between visualizing, achievement and creativity. The media across the world also helps the image of the Goddess, which is an aesthetic and creative value to enrich lives. The Goddess has characteristics that women, from diverse faiths, cultures and background, honor. The global perspective of the Goddess emphasizes life affirming interconnections among women and other species. To know one self better is a universal human need. Women are caught between survival and achievement. Each person, to maximize his or her skills, needs to image the self as part of the divine, as resonating with life. As each person does, he or she increases creativity, achievement and generate beautiful evidence of own insights. These offerings enrich the person's life and the world overall. Some people will make religions out of these possibilities, sounding like big and clever experts, in front of others.

Qualitative analysis found themes to describe spirituality: connection with a Higher Power, personal choice, connectedness with nature and people, healing, and support. Most women across the globe view spirituality and religion as separate, yet connected, entities. Benefits of women's spirituality groups include the groups' being therapeutic, providing valued relationships, and social support.

Spiritualism Uncovered

Spiritualism is a type of religion that should not be confused with spirituality. The spiritualism religion is built on the belief that when people die their spirits reside in another realm known as the spirit world. The believers also believe that the spirits of these dead people want to make contact with the people in the living world. They firmly believe that these spirits attempt to make communications with the living world regularly.

Mediums are people with the ability to hear, see, or otherwise make connections with spirits easier than the average person can. All people have the ability to be communicated with by someone from the spirit world but a medium has the ability to truly understand and explain to us what the communication means. There are mediums of who is not a part of the spiritualism religion, but when a psychic is of this religion they are considered to be spiritualist mediums.

Spiritualist mediums were first recognized in the 18oos when spiritualism began to be a popular religion. Most of the people that belong to these religious orders were from the upper and middle income classes. It all began around 1840 and by 1897 there were reportedly more than eight million active members of this religion in the United States and throughout Europe.

Some of the credibility of the spiritualist mediums was damaged because of the many accusations that were made of people who were fraudulently pursuing financial gain by claiming to be psychic. Spiritualism as a religion lost much of its favor when these accusations began and now there are less active members than there were in the 1800s and early 1900s, most of the people who do belong to this religious order live in the United States, or Canada, with some people residing in the United Kingdom.

Anatomy of a Spiritual Illness (Part 4 of 5)

My meditation practice at this time actually instilled some lucidity, and this clarity kept growing until I really could see with new eyes. The increased clarity was slow in developing, however, which enabled me to more easily absorb the changes that were occurring. Every day and every moment, I stayed true to my practice. What else could I do?

Then one evening, as I was contentedly concentrating, a strange thing happened. Happiness, bliss, confidence, and single-mindedness surrounded me. I suddenly could see that "striking the bell" and "maintaining the tone" were too close to thought, and therefore objectionable -- while happiness, bliss, confidence, and single-mindedness were satisfying and serene. It was as if my effort to meditate was interfering with this newfound peace.

Not long after this occurrence, and perhaps because of the intense sensitivity that was developing because of the illness; I became painfully aware of how frenzied the actual experience of happiness was. A hint of this cropped up in Pennsylvania, but the insight was stronger now, a new kind of awareness that wanted to dismiss happiness completely and leave only equanimity and bliss remaining. Now my practice really took a turn toward stillness as I basked in this equanimity and bliss watching everything without partiality. I was neither happy nor depressed, neither striving nor slack, and although bliss came up at times, I no longer felt necessarily attached to it. This stage felt very mature.