Spirit
The matter of spirit is perhaps one of the most controversial subjects of all time. It is virtually inaccessible to investigation, and completely so to scientific investigation. The only evidence of its existence is both anecdotal and subjective. That is to say, the reports of its existence are not testable (hence, anecdotal), and the source of those reports is individual human perception where no objective analog is determined to exist (hence, is entirely subjective to the perceiver). Nevertheless, this matter is of profound concern in general, and is also specific to the subject of religion; and so we attempt to address it here.
Though the evidence is of no value to direct investigation, it nevertheless is all that is available, and so it requires enumeration and inspection, in order to see what is to be done. So that some order can be created, an initial definition is appropriate, and that must be crafted from the proposed and fundamental attributes as gleaned from the evidence. Probably primary amongst those is the assertion that the realm of spirit is extraphysical and is not bound by physical law. An additional attribute is necessarily deduceable, and that is that it is somehow human accessible, else we should never be aware of its putative existence. Also, the evidence is unambiguous in the claim of the existence of the spiritual realm, even if not exactly as described in any given particular.
From these, the following definition may be drawn: The realm of spirit is an objective non-physicality that is human accessible.
In general, the evidence has three distinct sources: 1) religion, 2) traditional lore, and 3) modern beliefs. The first two have some amount of commonality as the first is but a subset of the second, but the third is presumed to be different in kind from the others. It will be seen that there is some amount of contradiction and disagreement stemming from the differing points of view of these sources, which only serves to add to the controversy, of course.
The Hebrew religions specify a rigorous view of the realm of spirit as the sole domain of God, though parts of that domain are said to be of widely divergent nature. It is not particularly clear that there was a spiritual aspect to the original Mosaic beliefs, though we tend to interpret Yahweh's presence as at least super-physical. Descriptions of presumed miracles abound in the Torah, though most of these appear likely to have a physical basis; we might suppose the authors of the Torah did not comprehend the reality of what they recorded.
In general, one reads of signs and wonders, though it is not clear that these are not synchronistic events and one sort or other of personal "magic". In that regard, it is relevant to remember that a sufficiently sophisticated technology is indistinguishable from magic, to quote the late Arthur C. Clark. Healing was regularly, if not often, a matter of driving out "demons", in the very same manner as we observe in aboriginal cultures today. And in the very same way, healing lore can be supposed to have been as sophisticated in the use of natural remedies as we find them today.
So it is difficult to pin down the details of their world view, especially in light of modern scholarship that illuminates in a practical way what has otherwise been misunderstood. However, we do know that at some point in the latter part of the presumed Israelite period, the tradition of the prophet had become solidified as being the result of some non-physical communication or transferrence between God and Prophet. Descriptions of wild men of the wilderness yield images that the modern mind may be excused for interpreting as some form of insanity are seen, where the "possessed" prophet speaks as with God's tongue.
We can suppose as well that the well attested shaman, with dream-state authority to speak and act for spirits and spiritual matters, was much the basis for the prophet as well. In this regard, it is evident that the early Hebrew religions were well founded on the larger spiritual tradition that is the second major source mentioned. So it seems reasonable to conclude that some amount of the basic views of the realm of spirit were ritualizations of shamanistic practices, institutionalized in the form of worship licensed by Yahveh, or any other given deity, for that matter.
As we read the later accounts included in the Tahahk and in the Old Testament, we can see how the Yahvehist Israelites became more and more politically oriented as their "nationhood" became the principal manifestation of the value of Yahveh. So there became a rising value of spiritual ritual as a part of political propaganda, as Yahvehism is recorded as spreading. Eventually, however, when Jerusalem fell to Babylon, a sea change in the nature of Mosaic Yahvehism occured. Yahveh had deserted his people and left them to bondage, and in the ashes a new legalistic religious culture arose. How much the scholarly opportunities of Babylon had to do with the eventual formation of the Torah is not known, but we can suppose that some amount of what is recorded as Israelite history is actually a composite of that of some number of different cultures. And that includes the views and understanding of the realm of spirit as well.
One of the problems with Judaism is that we simply do not know that much about what preceded the Babylon period. What they brought with them when they returned is largely submerged in the tumultuous events of history with the incursion of Greeks, Alexander's Hellenistic world, and eventually Rome. Several religious themes run concurrently, with the legalism of the Mosaic code seeming to dominate all. But there were a variety of shaman based practices clothed in the new Jewish religion, and a growing emphasis on intellectualism as well. In the background, we find that there were a range of cult-belief orientations now seen to be lumped under the organization of the Essenes, who seem to have kept communities in constant touch.
The ancient near east had already given rise to a handful of "mysteries", which seem to have been an intellectualization of shaman dream ritual, now given a growing elaboration of conceptual formalism. The mystery schools were a seeming conglomeration of budding science, philosophy and spiritual ritual, out of which appears to have flowed a steady trickle of what appear to us as thinkers and scholars. It seems to have been the consensus that certain types of knowledge originated in the realm of spirit, although all that has come down to us is the various schools of philosophy, with supporting themes of an intellectual spiritualism, some of which manifest as gnosis of one type or other.
The fall of Jerusalem in 70 AD was a real watershed for the Hebrew religions, because the center had been permanently destroyed, never to rise again. It is hypothesized that a great many dispersed Jews sought explanation that the Mosaic Yahvehism could no longer provide, having failed to defend itself against the prophesied Kittim. By that time, Alexandria in Egypt had been the intellectual jewel of the Mediterranean and many of the Jewish intellectuals had already gathered there. A fair number of the high priests had already managed to relocate themselves to what is now southern France, and they became the basis for the Kingdom of Septimania that arose centuries later.
Out of all this, a new form of pseudo Judaism began to arise, much of which finally took form nearly a millennia later further west in Spain and France. By this time, Rome had become ensconced as the mature dominant power of the Mediterranean region, and without a homeland, the Jews learned to accommodate the political powers of the day. Some of the Jews had already been Hellenized for centuries, and the history of the land of Judah was written in the blood of the battles between the Hellenized and the traditional Jews, as well as with the Greeks, and finally the Romans. It was the Hellenized contingent that supported this new movement, amorphous and groping for some foundation upon which to rebuild their relationship to their God.
So the beginning coalition of what later became the Christians was already under way in Alexandria, while the traditional priesthood had gathered further west. When the more militant of these new groups began to gather around a new concept of the Messiah they had sought in vain, activists from the fringes of nonJewish God fearers joined with them in what can only be described as religious fanatics, out to find a new way of appeazing Yahveh, this time with their own demonstration of piety, self-mortification and suicidal protest.
It has been suggested that a strong contingent of pious Jews were prepared to believe that finally Yahveh would put in an appearance during the last days of Jerusalem. By that time, all sense of the original nature of Yahveh had been overlain with mystical mythology, and literal manifestations of heavenly armies and thundering gods were part of the expectations of the Jews that remained in Jerusalem to the last. The shaman's realm of spirit had become the residence of Yahveh, and now the pious were firmly oriented toward a future in that realm after death.
It's probably relevant to note at this point that entre into the realm of spirit had for a very long time been regarded as reserved for special people. In Egypt, we see a slow transition from the third millenium BC priest-kings to the second millennium BC pharaohs, who were granted entre as well, but more and more that entre was not exclusive. But it was not until the end of the first millennium BC that the general belief that all were able to gain such entre became widespread, and this is largely true across the ancient near east, and presumably elsewhere as well. So the expectation of the common man that the realm of spirit was open and available to him as well gave impetus to the growing movement of pan cultural individual involvement in one's spiritual destiny. And this was the setting for the rise of Christianity.
To sum up at this point, Judaism had postulated the realm of spirit as the sole domain of Yahveh, which had several implications. The first was that Yahveh had somehow become victorious over all the other gods, or had somehow reduced them to the status of small statues, no longer in that realm at all. The second is that Yahveh made provision for the status of His people as an afterlife, at least for those who had not committed mortal sins, etc.
The existence of individuals after physical death had long been postulated, with anecdotal evidence of witness and communion. In most all cases, however, the "shades" of the dead remained somehow connected to, if not bound to, the physical realm of the living. It seems to have been a belief, if not an article of faith, that worship of a deity would enhance or alleviate this situation, though it is never exactly clear what that might entail. Now, however, the expectation of accommodation of some sort in the spiritual realm was becoming wide spread, and the stage was set for a "new deal", essentially a new covenant.
In any case, propitiation of one's deity was the universal and fundamental modality, however accomplished. For the Christians, two rather profound changes had taken place. 1) No longer was the law regarded as the sole means of propitiating God. 2) The insertion of a well known ritual performed by various deities took place: said deity would manifest in physical form and suffer death, usually on a yearly basis, so that life might be renewed for the worshippers. This latter had been a seasonal ritual, but was now taken to the heightened state of a single ritual good for all eternity.
The model for this figure seems to have been one of the Jewish Messiahs that had failed to lead the people to victory and probably crucified for his troubles, though not necessarily. Such figures had risen and fallen for centuries during the last half millennium of the Jewish theocracy in Jerusalem, the last being that of Simon bar Kochba in the early second century AD. Now that the cause had been lost, a growing consensus amongst Hellenized Jews in Alexandria and non-Jewish God-fearers was that one way of reclaiming God's promise of accommodation was to personally re-enact the violent death of execution. Needless to say, few had the conviction to actually follow up on this.
The alternative was to simply have faith that the Messianic sacrifice had been sufficient. Accordingly, the really important detail of how likely that might have been became a huge issue, and this all boiled down to the nature of the given Messiah. It was necessary that said sacrifice be both human and divine, though how that might have been was a matter of great controversy. One one extreme, some (and they still exist today) said that the Messiah was entirely human and that the sacrifice was acceptable because of the Messianic lineage (Davidian?). On another extreme the Messiah was said to have been a direct manifestation of Yahveh, though only in part as it would thus have not been possible for Yahveh to have been in been both the forgiver and the forgiven. Accordingly, the view was that to qualify for spiritual accommodation, the physical realm had to be repudiated as much as possible.
Most split the difference in some fashion. And that is how things stood for centuries. Meanwhile, politics inevitably got involved. At the beginning of the 4th century AD, a member of British royalty worked himself up to the position of sole Emperor of Rome, and recognizing a shift in demographics, moved his court to a city in Greece on the north shore of the Bosporus Straights into the Black Sea. Renaming it eponymously, it became Constantinople, and the Roman Empire began its twinning, the latter to eventually become the Byzantine Empire.
Constantine naturally had a lot of problems as a result of this action, and one of them was the need to weld a new Empire into a semblance of the homogeneity that characterized Rome. One strategy was to accommodate divergent cultural institutions as not merely tolerated but approved by the Roman Empire. Amongst these was the now burgeoning worship of the newly defined Jewish Messiah, which via the Greek language became known finally as Christianity.
Though Constantine viewed it as a subset of Sun worship characteristic of Mithraism, these new folk were a fractious lot, with much disagreement over the details of their new divine focus of worship. Constantine called a council at Nicaea, which proved recalcitrant as one might expect, and finally he had to resolve the issue by a velvet gloved fiat: God and the Messiah were not of the same nature, but the latter was "like unto" the former. Essentially, the sacrifice of the crucified Messiah was legitimized by defining his divinity as "close to" but not "identical" with that of Yahveh, and for this, Christianity was on its way to becoming the state religion of Rome. Constantine did not make it thus but a successor did so within the century.
Meanwhile, back in Rome, the western Empire rather quickly fell to the neighboring people, and Odoacer sacked Rome in 476 AD, leaving Rome to reinvent itself as it might. Under the rule of a succession of Goths for less than a century, it was reclaimed by the Byzantine Empire as a province. However, the head of the state religion established in Rome saw that it was not necessary to have a government in order to rule in the west. When Rome fell, Roman Christianity had already just established its first link with the newly established Frankish kingdoms by converting Clovis, the founder of the Merovingian dynasty.
Within a few centuries, the Roman church had established the opportunity to exert itself, and with the putative authentication of a forged document called the Donation of Constantine, declared itself authorized to legitimize secular kingdoms. The Roman church had been battling the incursion of Arian Christianity, which held that the Messiah was subordinate to Yahveh (did not accept Constantine's solution), and eventually won out by replacing the somewhat recalcitrant Merovingians with another dynasty founded on a Merovingian palace mayor, the Carolingians. This dynasty put Rome back in charge in the west by becoming the foundation of the Holy Roman Empire.
The problem that Christianity never overcame was that of internal cohesion: that was never achieved. The eventual winners, the Nicaeans, held that God and Jesus Christ (the Messiah figure) were of equal status. This was deemed necessary, because unless that were the case, Christianity risked accepting a subordinate position; the necessary result of an inequality between God and Christ. That the Roman church maintained that position is the reason that Nicaean Christianity is dominant today.
Essentially, then, the fatal flaw in Christianity has been the inability to agree on the nature of the realm of spirit: is it, or is it not, the sole domain of Yahveh/God? The argument was one of simple political necessity: one does not prevail by accepting a subordinate position. Eventually, there arose a new interpretation of the argument, which basically did away with Yahveh, placed the Elohim back in primary position as a single entity (Allah), and accepted Jesus Christ as a prophet. This took place in the early part of the 7th century on the Arabic coast of the Red Sea.
The above description requires explanation for those who do not recognize the issues involved. Yahveh is the deity proposed by Moses, and only came to be the God of the Israelites on that account. Yahveh prevailed as the Mosaic code was accepted by the Jews as the basis of their identity. The new interpretation developed by one Muhammad ibn Abdulla al Mecca returned to the worship of the God of Abraham, arguably one of the Elohim (though which one is unknown). The entire approach is summed up in one word: obedience. In Arabic, that is Islam.
The Jews had given notice that they did not expect a prophet to arise in Israel any time before the end times, which had arguably not occurred. So taking the Christian deity as a prophet in his own right, Muhammad claimed himself the last prophet of the original deity, and set himself to deliver the word of Allah. The result was basically codified within a century of his death, and is literally called as described here, though the term is 'recitation', in Arabic: Quran.
Muhammad envisioned his people as the heirs to the Jews, and Islam was intended solely for the Arabic people, both those on the coast and those inland, the Bedu. The primary injunction is that every adherent of Islam must establish a personal relationship with Allah, and be obescient therein. The working arrangement between adherents was intended to be a cooperative/communal culture, which was the initial format founded by Muhammad himself in Medina.
By the time of his death, Islam had exploded across northern Africa, invaded Spain, and had spread northward as the Arabs became able to push back their northern frontiers. Acceptance as given by Muhammad began to become difficult to maintain, and in his old age, Muhammad gave license to violence if necessary to safeguard the purity of his teachings. This, of course, is the source of the modern jihad (holy war).
One of the very clear tenets of Islam is that the faithful will be accommodated in the same realm as Allah, and this finally resolved all the ambiguity about the ultimate eventuality of all followers.
Unfortunately for Islam, the cultural tradition and his established way came into instant conflict at his death. There were those who held that the family of Muhammad was entitled to lead in his absence, and four generations later that lineage ended with the execution of the Khalif Ali. His followers were known collectively as the 'party of Ali', now called Shi-ites. At various points there were some number of different interpretations of how Islam should be organized, but the other dominant philosophy is that the example set by Muhammad and his Companions in Medina should be primary; these are the Sunni.
In general, the Sunnis favor a more secular interpretation of Muhammad's prophecies, while the Shi-ite favor a more theocratic interpretation, as might be expected of those who regarded Muhammad's family as divinely entitled to retain leadership. It is the classic struggle between those who would lead and retain power, and those who would allow individual interpretation to form the basis of the agreed-upon culture.
As might be expected, a third stream of Islam emerged eventually and though discredited once has emerged again and is now in the position of real power. This is Wahabism and is the dominant religious force in Saudi Arabia. Basically, they believe that pure Islam died with the Khalif Ali and needs to be reinstated as the true Islam. They are very much okay with violence, and of their number, one is now behind much of current global terrorism, Usama binLaden.
Thus, it can be argued that the primary source of much of the political problems in today's world is the dispute over who, if anyone, has sole dominion in the realm of spirit. The fact appears to be, however, that it is this issue which arose over Roman Christianity's insistence on equal billing for Christ in order to retain the dominance of Christianity, that is once again willy nilly the putative basis of ongoing way in the Middle East. Putative, because the evident reality is that nothing has changed there: the local clan/tribal chiefs continue to vie for power as they have for millennia past. And the realm of spirit almost certainly has nothing whatever to do with the matter.
So much for the Hebrew religions and their views and claims about the realm of spirit.
Grass roots traditions have a very different view of the spiritual realm, and do not assign dominance thereof to any being or entity. The realm of spirit is most commonly regarded as being the ultimate destination of any entity capable of retaining coherence after the death of the physical body. Depending on the point of view, this may or may not in fact include all living things. General agreement seems to be that strictly physical objects do not have spiritual counterparts except as they are created there by entities capable of doing so.
For those who regard all of nature as having a spiritual essence, it is that essence that is said to hold dominion over physical manifestation, and so access to the realm of spirit gives one special powers of relationship to nature. This is very much the position of the shaman, who is able to perceive and even touch the spiritual counterparts of physical nature, and is thus in a position of great power in the physical world. Since this realm is human accessible, it is possible for some to choose to live there while still physically manifest, so it is said. These individual's are reckoned to possess great power, and are those known as magicians, wizards, warlocks, etc.
It is also believed that the realm of spirit is unbounded, such that it may not be entirely accessible to entre from the physical realm. Those who have entered there after physical death thus are said to have the option to move beyond such access. On this basis, apparently, it is asserted by those who profess to know that in fact the realm of spirit is far from homogenous, that it comprises some indeterminate number of environments, and human spirits or souls gain access to a presumably greater range thereof by some sort of evolution/growth/acclimation. This is said to be the basis of the perceived need to acquire suitable training while still physically alive, apparently as a means of preparation that will be found useful there.
In that regard, a popular notion is that the realm of spirit is literally what one makes of it, that what we experience and understand as the ability to imagine is the primary, if not the sole, means of creativity. There are some corollaries to this notion: If in fact it is the power of the imagination that is creative there, said power may also be the means of creating access as well. If so, then it follows that there is the possibility that as we exercise our imagination while stilly physically alive, we are also creating a personal environment there, though the particulars are at best unclear.
It turns out that this notion, in one form or other, underlies much of the lore of the realm of spirit. It certainly provides a plausible mechanism by which an individual can be known in that realm. This would apply to those who reside there as well as those who visit there, and would only depend on suitable sensory apparatus in either regard. Thus resident deities, in sole charge or not, may apprise themselves of any and all particulars regarding any individual, incarnate or not.
This also serves as a putative defining requirement for those who profess power in the realm of spirit, for good or for ill. And it also explains how and why the realm of spirit could indeed, at least in part, be a reflection of the human reality of the physical realm. The power of imaging/imagination presumably projects that reality thus. It is interesting to contemplate the notion put forth by Sheldrake as discussed previously: A morphogenic field could be regarded as an image of sorts, such that might project thus. In that regard, the thought occurs that the realm of spirit might in fact be the stuff of which such fields might be created.
A further consideration is that what we defined as the subjective scenarios intended to satisfy the range of options that any moment holds in potential, such that answer the question "What comes next?", might also in fact be the same created images postulated as the stuff of the realm of spirit. If that is possible, then we are faced with a real problem: the construction of such scenarios is a fairly well hard-wired capability, and it functions without the need for intention on the part of any individual. It is thus intended to be beyond ready control, and so it might be said that we are each generating our own future in the realm of spirit by the very act of being alive as a human individual!
In fact, something very much akin to this consideration is held to be the case by traditional sources, and modern opinions and beliefs as well. The upshot of this is stark: It would seem that each of us may well need to learn to control what we imagine!
A moment's reflection yields the insight that this may well be true regardless of the existence of any spiritual dimension: It is what we prepare ourselves to address that we 1) are most likely to recognize, and 2) are best prepared to respond. Given that much of the time our environment is not specifically oriented to our own concerns, it is well understood that a good amount of what we believe is real is in fact primarily, if not wholely, our interpretation. So the virtue of acquiring control of our scenario building has obvious and directly supported merit right here in the physical realm.
That said, however, the notion that one is also creating one's one ultimate and timeless future serves as a much more powerful impetous to take control of one's imagination. It can be argued that if it is thought that such control is difficult to achieve, it may not be sought unless a compelling interest is created. It turns out that to a good extent, religious piety serves that function, though admittedly in a rather primitive and rigid manner. This in fact is the basis of one of the few reasonable arguments in favor of religion.
More to the issue at hand, the question might be whether or not there is a discernable effect of such control that can be differentiated from any possible physical cause. The notion is that one might demonstrate the existance of a non-physical realm by showing a cause/effect relationship that can have no physical mechanism. One popular means of investigation is the attempt to create a telepathic projection that can be detected by another individual. A variation of this is an attempt to successfully engage in remote viewing. These and other ploys are not only traditional but have been taken seriously by modern science, as will be addressed in due course.
Traditional lore has it that certain ethnic groups of people share such abilities and routinely use them in their cultures. One such group is the Gypsy, known to themselves as the Rom. These people hold themselves apart from the rest of humanity, regarding themselves as special by lineage; in fact, it is said that they routinely regard the rest of humanity as "gaje", a variety of dumb beast. And they do this because, it is said, part of their definition of a true human is the ability to share thoughts, view remotely, etc. Whether or not any of this has been documented is unknown.
At this point, it's time to invoke our modern views. Science has had a sporadic trackrecord in dealing with the business. There are several reasons for this: 1) So far, science has not found traction. There is nothing that presents itself for real scientific investigation, at least so far as is generally agreed at this time. 2) Science is expensive, and requires funding. There are few sources of funding for efforts in these areas, largely due to religion's claim to have complete and exclusive purview of these matters. So few deep pockets are willing to risk the sort of discreditation religion can bring to bear when religion's dicta are flouted. 3) The area of interest is already so badly muddied with pseudo-science that few scientists are disposed to address these matters in any case. No way, no means, and no interest; a pretty definitive combination of factors.
That said, there are always exceptions, largely driven by the desire to make a reputation by contributing real science in any area thought intractable by the scientific community. Of such stuff is that which wins Nobel Prizes. And there seems to be a continuum of fringe scientists whose agenda is served by "debunking" these subjects. Of the first lot, there are some decent examples, and of the second there are some notorious examples.
Research into extraphysical powers and senses has long gone on at Duke University in North Carolina. Drs J.B. and L. E. Rhine, a husband and wife team of biologists from Chicago University, undertook the first serious investigation into the existence of such phenomenon, and have established beyond doubt that they do exist, though so far no further progress has been made in the subject. It is one thing to show statistically the existence of a phenomenon, and entirely another to demonstrate the mechanisms thereof. A judicious selection of studies, however, can point the way to more fruitful lines of inquiry and indicate possible mechanisms, etc, but the last step is so often elusive and the research hasn't gotten there. Yet.
Other efforts include the Puthoff and Targ studies at Stanford Research Institution (later SRI International) in Palo Alto, CA. The best known of these is the remote viewing project suggested by a NY artist, Ingo Swann, who became the principal test subject as well. One remarkable project was a remote viewing of the planet Jupiter in 1973, which produced raw data subsequently verified dramatically by the Voyager probe in 1979. Swann saw a ring of crystals below the top limits of the atmosphere which was later verified much to the amazement of science. Almost all his other observations were verified as well. The scientific community does not accept Puthoff and Targ's work, and largely repudiates it as pseudoscience.
Now, most serious work, if any such exists, is said to have become privatized. This may indicate that some money sources regard the subject as itself a source of potential profit, indicating the possible existence of confirming data not readily available to the public. In general, though, the subject is too controversial for mainstream science.
Nonetheless, there has been a constant interest in matters of the spirit down through history to the present day, and that interest has been largely private and so not available to the public. In many cases, the notion that certain knowledge resides in the realm of spirit seems to have survived, even thrived. In others, it seems that the knowledge is hidden, though not of that realm; it is apparently regarded as lost, though remnants survive that tantalize those who have pursued them. In the main, though, it is difficult to discern the extent of interest and involvement directly with the issue of the spiritual realm.
In the last few centuries, there has been an emerging interest in the putative spiritual technologies of the cultures beyond the ancient near east. India, and southeast Asia have yielded an apparent sophistication of knowledge and expertise that leaves the claims of the Hebrew religions looking like infantile mewlings. Accordingly, it is not surprising that the Far East has become a popular area of interest for those who are not satisfied by western culture in these regards.
Further interest in the cultures of the ancient far west has developed, popularly known now as the Celtic traditions. It turns out that the realm of spirit was regarded in a very egalitarian manner, where cultural recognition of the realm of spirit as an integral part of human life was a matter of attested fact. Naturally, there is sometimes high interest in discovering the particulars: What were the Celtic rituals and what did theyh do? What was the Celtic pantheon and how did the Celts treat it/them? What was the Celtic daily experience of the realm of spirit? And so forth.
It seems reasonable that the Celtic and Germanic traditions of the realm of spirit are the bases for the grass-roots traditions of western civilization, and the modern version of those rituals are said to mirror their progenitors, though to what extent is arguable. The overall movement is largely called Paganism, of which a subset is called Wicca. Some claim that Paganism is the fastest growing "religion" in the United States, and if so, that might be consistent with the growing weakness of traditional Protestantism and the rise of Fundamentalism at the opposite end from Paganism. In any case, it appears from the anecdotal evidence given, that the realm of spirit is very close to the central subject of Paganism. It remains to be seen if any hard data results from these advocacy interests.
These various aspects aside, it would appear that we can glean some insight into the nature of the realm of spirit. It appears now that it is primarily a function of human consciousness, though the media involved is virtually unguessable, it seems. One interesting probe was by Roger Penrose of Oxford in the UK and Stuart Hammeroff of the U of A in Tuscon AZ. The notion involves quantum activity at the level of the microtubules in brain neurons, which places one at the threshold of the realms in which dimensions are said to be folded up, presumably ready for manifestation in some not readily imaginable manner.
It has not escaped attention that the realm of spirit could in fact exist somehow as a quantum artifact (trace of human presence), but as yet no recognizable trace thereof has been discerned. It also has not escaped notice that on the opposite end of the scale, the many worlds ideas have yet to be positively refuted, such that what humanity regards as the realm of spirit might be possible somehow in that regard.
But there is a very important distinction to be made in the review of all this, and that is that there is a very large distance between that which is possible and that which is demonstrated. One of the candidates for inclusion in the list of universal laws is that notion that anything not specifically forbidden, must exist. What is not included here are any qualifiers, like how or when or where, etc. It is these particulars that make the difference.
It could be said that the realm of spirit has not been forbidden by the laws of physics. The relevance of that statement is that anything which is connected to the physical realm in any way must also be a candidate for eventual inclusion therein. Possible portals to insights and explanations are discerned, though no details have emerged. Evidence of non-local effects have been shown, and evidence that supports the contention that some phenomenon that must resemble parts of the notion of the spiritual realm has been gathered.
What this means is that is is not reasonable to assert that the realm of spirit does not exist because it cannot exist. And in that case, it remains a legitimate area of interest and potential investigation. The weight of historical evidence declares that religion itself, specifically the Hebrew religions and particularly Christianity, are the single restraining vector in these regards. Simply put, the Church does not want the realm of spirit, or anything of that nature, investigated, because its very existence rests upon its claim that it has sole purview of the matter.
Perhaps the most meaningful observation might be: And this too shall pass away.
It remains to contemplate what we can conclude from this review.