ABSTRACT

This article aims to facilitate the transition from a religiousdefinition of spiritual literacy to a non-religious, secular one.Philosophical anthropology emphasises the spiritual dimen-sion as an anthropological constant. However, research invarious fields frequently considers its intersection with reli-giousness. Non-religious spirituality cultivates experiences oftranscendence but does not enter into the processes ofhierophany (the sacred, the holy). The term ‘spiritual literacy’,which emphasises that the given mode of human experienceis not constant but can be intentionally cultivated, provesoptimal for education even in secular environment of publicschools. A spiritually literate (cultivated) personality is anindividual who reflects and cultivates skills of self-reflection,who can act in relation to other people in a mode charac-terised by prosocial orientation and altruism, who can experi-ence environmental sensitivity and kinship with nature, andwho is capable of astonishment and amazement at experien-cing transcendence in relation to the wholeness.

Introduction

The semantic field defining the understanding of the topic of this paper is veryblurred and imprecise. The specific delimitation of the meanings of basic termsis fundamentally dependent on the ideological grounding of individualresearchers and experts publishing on spirituality in the educational environ-ment. Conceptual ambiguity may therefore be the reason why spiritual devel-opment is perceived as a paradoxical ideal (Moulin-Stozek 2020). The unclearlink is evident, for example, in the case of spiritual development and holisticeducation, although I can join the views that holistic education must not neglectthe spiritual dimension of personality (Nyarko 2020; Miller 2016), for the wholeof the human way of being is not complete without spirituality.

Since there is a model that sees spirituality as a concept broader than thereligious and describes spiritual development also within the framework of religious education (O’Donnell 2020), I would like to emphasise an alternativeconception. I will try to accent why it is possible to perceive spirituality withouta religious dimension and how spirituality can be developed in a secular envir-onment. For this definition I will use the concept of spiritual literacy. As I will tryto explain in the following text, a spiritually literate (cultivated) personality is anindividual who reflects and cultivates skills of self-reflection (Rohyatin et al.2020; Ezealah 2019), who can act in relation to other people in a mode char-acterised by prosocial orientation and altruism (Fiona et al. 2018; Zarghi andBolghan-Abadi 2021), who can experience environmental sensitivity and kinshipwith nature (Preston and Shin 2022; Suganthi 2019), and who is capable ofastonishment and amazement at experiencing transcendence in relation to thewholeness (Jastrzebski 2021; Manuel-Morgan and Lomas 2021; Abernethy andKim 2018).

I will try to prove that the spiritual qualities of life belong potentially to everyhuman being, that it is a fundamental character of all human beings, but at thesame time that without developing this potential, a person can – in the words ofJan Amos Komenský – fall into ‘non-human’ (Hábl, 2017). An underdevelopedspirituality manifests itself in a narcissistic overestimation of one’s own impor-tance and in an exaggerated self-admiration. Or (possibly simultaneously) inpsychopathic arrogance in relation to other people’s rights and feelings. Ina lack of sensitivity to environmental issues and in irresponsible plundering ofnatural resources. In short, a life with undeveloped spirituality is a life withoutprinciples and peace, manifesting itself in the pursuit of mammon or in super-ficial preoccupation without asking deep questions. Therefore, it is appropriateto develop one’s spiritual potential and the concept of spiritual literacy suggeststhe developmental dimension of this theme.

Religious spirituality

It is clear that the understanding of the terms religion and spirituality, and theircontent, depends to a large extent on their cultural and social construction. Oneof the theses of this paper is that religion – unlike spirituality – is not part ofeveryone’s life. As an example, consider the situation in Central Europe: whilethe Czech Republic might be the most secularised country in Europe,1 sucha characterisation does not apply at all to the nearest neighbouring countries,where religiosity reach about 80% religious population.2 A certain hypersensi-tivity to terms such as ‘religion’, ‘holy’, ‘sacred’, etc. can be experienced in theCzech Republic. And, even more, the access of religious organisations to publiceducation in this country is not fully equal, as churches based on Christianity inparticular have a privileged position thanks to special rights guaranteed by thestate (Havlíček 2018).

Does this mean that the people here cannot experience deeper states ofexistence? A low level of religion does not eo ipso mean a low level of spiritual experiences. Perhaps surprisingly, the people living here are not religious, butthey are highly spiritual and diverse spiritual practices belonging to varioustraditions are widely used and experienced here (Nešporová and Nešpor 2009).Therefore, it seems likely that efforts to name the essential specifics of non-religious spirituality may be more radical in a secular environment than in onewhere spirituality and religion are conceived of in a blurred connection betweenthe intersections of both phenomena, including use in pedagogical contexts.

Because historically the development of spirituality has been associatedprimarily with a religious way of life and with fervent piety, the religiousmodus of spirituality has traditionally developed in a religious context. Thus,religious spirituality is perceived differently and specifically in different religioussystems, with different emphases of theology such as Christian spirituality(Louw 2021; Scorgie 2022), Islamic spirituality (Ghorbani et al. 2018;Amiruddin, Qorib, and Zailani 2021), Jewish spirituality (Alex and Morgan2016), etc. Due to theological differences in the understanding of religiousspirituality, its development is carried out differently, i.e., with regard to reli-gious faith. So religious spirituality ‘is closely linked with religion or faith tradi-tion’ (Lee 2020), p. 1). Thus religion can be seen as one of the five dimensions ofspirituality that a teacher can develop in children (Rogers and Hill 2002).

The current situation of religious diversity also requires interreligious dialo-gue in religious education (Pollefeyt and Richards 2020). Thus, in scientificschools, guided by the idea of pluralism and democracy of diverse religioussystems, information from scientific studies of religions is used (Moe 2019),freedom of religion is emphasised, and there is no uniform or common educa-tional policy on religious education in the countries’ national systems (Llorent-Vaquero 2018).

If traditionally the term spirituality has been used mainly in religious contexts,since roughly the mid-20th century, in relation to the New Age movement, thewave of environmentalism and feminism, the term has come to refer toa broader range of spiritual experiences (Vliegenthart 2020) and nowadays theprevailing view is that spirituality can be realised both within and outsidereligious traditions (Vaughan 2002). Related to this is the increasingly popularself-labelling phrase ‘spiritual but not religious’, with which a relatively largepart of the population of Western civilisation identifies. Yet even this definitionremains varied and ambiguous in its use, and culturally contingent (Wixwat andSaucier 2021).

Non-religious spirituality

The conceptual complexity and ambiguity of the basic concept, spirituality, isbehind many of the difficulties in potentially defining its non-religious concep-tion. Spirituality is perceived as part of health, or spiritual health is conceived asa holistic phenomenon (Zullig, Ward, and Horn 2006; Fisher 2011; Jirásek et al.2021). Psychological research operates with the possibility of perceiving spiri-tuality as an independent dimension of personality, e.g., as a sixth factorextending the ‘Big Five’ five-component model of personality (Henningsgaardand Arnau 2008; Piedmont 1999), or linking it to the four Jungian personalityfunctions (Bunker 1991). Another concept presupposes spirituality to be anindependent form of intelligence (Emmons 2000; Vaughan 2002). However,this is a highly debatable concept, as spiritual experience phenomenologicallytranscends the intellectual sphere (Gardner 2000).

The spirit, the basic constitutive element of the human way of being, includesnot only intellect, but also thinking (in ideas), and a certain manner of perceivingthe essential content, as well as a group of volitional and emotive acts such aslove, respect, blissfulness, freedom, and so forth. The spirit, an exclusivelyhuman characteristic, is not an object or substance, but an event, a constantself-realisation and updating. The centre of the manifestations of the spirit is theperson and his specific features of openness to the world, freedom, and exis-tential detachment (Scheler 1981). Hence the assumption that it is possible toanalyse spirituality without reference to religion and therefore that it is ade-quate to consider the phenomenon of non-religious, even atheist spirituality,yet this is not an entirely original theme (Jirásek 2013; Schnell 2012; Skurzak2020; Manuel-Morgan and Lomas 2021; Walach 2017). Another premise is thehypothesis of the difference between spiritual (pneumatic) and mental (psychic)states, processes and experiences. The former are characterised by an emphasison the existential dimension of life and its meaning (Frankl 2006), thus trans-cending not only physical grounding in the world but also psychic perfor-mances (i.e., reason, will, and emotion). The final premise is a characteristic ofnon-religious spirituality, evident in four distinct types of relationships: to self, toother people, to nature, and to transcendence (Jennifer, Haslip, and Schein2019b; Rogers and Hill 2002; Walton 1996; Hay and Nye 1998, 1996).

Note that it is the latter relationship that is probably the main reason for theconflation of religious and non-religious modes of spirituality, that is, thedistinction made by the category of the sacred, the basic element of religion,and the existentialist one that characterises spirituality. I believe that for ade-quate spiritual personal development, including experienced transcendence,basic understanding need not be anchored through religious terms denoting anontologically different reality (God, Lord, Creator, higher power, divinity, etc.)and experiences presupposing a relationship to it (religious attitude, faith,prayer, etc.). This brings us back to the fundamental difference between religionand spirituality.

Religious and spiritual experience

Typically, reference is made to the institutional foundations of religious life andpersonal experience of spirituality to distinguish the two (Nash 2002), yet I argue that the relationship between the two domains of individual experience andsocial life is more complicated, including the distinction between religious andspiritual experiences. What used to be perceived as a religious mode of experi-ence is now very often described as the spiritual dimension of experience, likepeak experience (Maslow 1994), flow (Csikszentmihalyi 1975), or holotropic, i.e.,oriented towards the whole (Grof 2003). All these types of experiences are notthe result of religious saturation, but of knowledge based on personal experi-ence. Thus, they are transcendent, spiritual experiences, but not necessarilyreligious ones. In connection with their potential for use in the pedagogicalenvironment, they can be subsumed under the umbrella term ‘transformativeexperiences’, expanding a change in the horizon of understanding and lifecontext (Jirásek, Parry, and Allison 2020).

In particular, the personal connections that exceed ordinary experience, thatis, the relationship to transcendence, to overcoming empirically detectablereality, is the area where spirituality most closely meets (or crosses) religion.Religious experiences differ from the daily provision of needs in the absence ofpurposefulness and entering the realm of the sacred, the holy. Religious experi-ences are attainable only through faith, which is a very different cognitiveapproach to the world compared to other approaches such as rationality.Without faith, religious experiences and therefore religious forms of the spiritualdimension cannot be fully experienced.

Both spheres (religion and non-religious spirituality) intervene in both areas,i.e., the profane and the sacred. Religion is not only beliefs, rituals and com-mands, but also objects, buildings, organisations and other secular aspectsbelonging essentially to religion. Spirituality is characterised in particular byexperiential states such as awe, beauty and love, which through extraordinaryexperiences merge into extraordinary states of consciousness. If the experiencesreach into the sacred sphere, they acquire the character of mystical, religiousexperiences. We can imagine two directions of experiential expansion: hiero-phany, the penetration of the sacred (divine) into natural reality, so to speak,from the top down, is necessary for religious movement. Conversely, the spiri-tual dimension is characterised by transcendence, that is, the ascent fromordinary experience into extraordinary states of consciousness, as it were,from the bottom up. The intersection of these two processes is possible. I willfocus on those aspects of the possible development of spirituality that areaccessible to every person, regardless of their worldview or faith stance.

Non-religious spiritual literacy

This paper intends to highlight the possibilities of a non-religious spirituality, itleans towards the spiritual development of children through fundamentalquestions, and a sense of self and non-material well-being (Wringe 2002),through a sense of awe and wonder, paradoxes and conflicts as parts of human life (Miller and Drake 1997), by the effect of the personality of theteacher, who is always the most important factor: ‘Whoever our students maybe, whatever subject we teach, ultimately we teach who we are’. (Palmer1999), p. 10).

Spiritual literacy, which can be developed in the secular environment ofpublic schools, thus cultivates four basic relationships (to self, to others, tonature, and to transcendence), makes use of experiential relationships that gobeyond the commonly realised personal identity, but does not enter the realmof the ‘absolutely other’, the sacred and holy, where spiritual experiences arealready transformed into religious ones.

The term ‘spiritual literacy’ appears sporadically in the pedagogical literature,but it is an area that has not been much explored and clarified so far, and nor is itterminologically anchored. We encounter the concept especially in research onchildren’s spirituality through visualisation methods (Binder 2011; Emma andSmalley 2013), where the idea of spiritual literacy is presented without sufficienttheoretical definition and its intuitive clarity is assumed when specific activitiesin the school environment are being described. Also, a set of hundreds of shortexamples pointing to a spiritual perspective on things, the environment, leisure,relationships, and community uses the term ‘spiritual literacy’ (Brussat and AnnBrussat 1998), but without adequate conceptual analysis. Spiritual literacy, againwithout distinguishing between spirituality and religion, is also related to thepossibilities of family therapy (Holmberg, Jensen, and Vetere 2021). With refer-ence to the use of the term ‘spiritual literacy’ in the context of religious educa-tion, the term has been criticised as being inherently unstable (Taggart 2002).The most recent contribution to the scholarly debate (Anna and Da Silva 2022)summarises the literature on children’s emerging spirituality, explains theimportance of spiritual experience in children’s lives, and evaluates the delinea-tion of spirituality towards to, or placement in, religious education and reflectson the potential implementation in curriculum and the introduction of spiritualliteracy into public education. Thus, it is a very close ideological affinity with thisstudy, differing primarily in selected argumentative emphases and specificformulations.

The idea of the content fulfilment of spiritual literacy cannot be approachedthrough a definition. However, some delimitation is provided by reference toexperiences in the four types of relationships already mentioned. Of course, it isnot possible to make a comprehensive list, so I will rather indicate the variousaspects by selected illustrative examples:

(1) Spirituality in relation to oneself is manifested in the skills of self-reflection(including listening to the voice of conscience), mindfulness, concentra-tion on present states of being, and questioning the meaning of life. Thisarea can be cultivated through calming and settling down, by limiting theperception of pressure and excessive sensations of the external world, contemplation, meditation, breath work, active imagination (Koncz et al.2021, Keating 2017; Van Gordon, Shonin, and Richardson 2018,Piotrowski, Binder, and Schwind 2017).

(2) Spirituality in relation to other people presents itself in the horizontaltranscendence of the self in prosocial orientation and altruism, in perso-nal friendly and loving attitudes, in compassion towards others. Sucha relationship cannot be conceived in a possessive mode, it is not basedonly on personal individual qualities, but is the building of a space‘between’ two people (Tsabar 2017; Aslanian 2018).

(3) Spirituality in relation to nature is evident in the environmental sensitivityand in the affinity with the natural world, in the possibilities of ‘connec-tion’ to the landscape and the natural world. This area is well commu-nicated by a well-developed tradition of environmental and outdooreducation (Heintzman et al. 2008; 2010, Solomon 2003).

(4) Spirituality in relation to the whole and to transcendence, which isevident in the vertical extension of the self, manifested in the capacityfor wonder and amazement. The experience of overlap, deep connection,consonance or fusion, which approximate the descriptions of the extra-ordinary states of consciousness commented above (peak experience,flow, holotropic experience) and transformative experiences, but withoutthe involvement of the process of hierophany and entering the realm ofthe sacred and holy. The experience of finding one’s own place in thetotality of reality and accepting the paradoxical nature of reality (Piff et al.2015; Schinkel 2020; Yaden et al. 2017).

Therefore, I present a working definition of a spiritually literate personality asan individual who reflects and cultivates skills of self-reflection, mindfulness, andconcentration in relation to themselves, who can act in relation to other peoplein a mode characterised by prosocial orientation and altruism, i.e., friendly andloving, who can experience environmental sensitivity and kinship with nature,and who is capable of astonishment and amazement at experiencing transcen-dence in relation to the whole and transcendence, for example, in the form ofextraordinary states of consciousness and transformative experiences.

How to develop spiritual literacy

Considering the reasonable scope of the text, I will only point out, by way ofillustration, a few possibilities for the development of spiritual literacy withregard to the age of the personalities being developed.

Even at an early age, in the preschool setting, children can be spirituallycultivated through free play, creative expression, and by emphasising holisticeducational opportunities in building interpersonal relationships, sensing adventure, asking questions, and practicing virtues (Mata-McMahon 2019;Jennifer, Haslip, and Schein 2019a, 2020).

In primary education, picture books are proving to be appropriate vehiclesfor cultivating spiritual literacy, particularly as a basis for guided discussionbetween children and an adult facilitator to highlight spiritual issues (Kendall1999), for interpreting associations between their own lives and mythologicalstories (Hyde 2005), or using art techniques, dramatisation and role-play (Gellel2018). Similarly, reading stories without visual accompaniment can servea similar purpose (Myers and Elaine Myers 1999).

For older school-aged children with more developed cognitive skills andabstract thinking, the pedagogical approach of Philosophy for Children (P4C)(Lipman 1984, 2011) has been shown to be a suitable tool for developingspiritual literacy. The goal of P4C is holistic thinking (Lipman 1993), or a formof ‘full literacy’ (Murris 2016), hence it meets the quest to cultivate spiritualliteracy in a holistic existence.

In adolescence, outdoor education also appears to be a suitable option fordeveloping spiritual literacy, as life transformation through adventure andexperiential programs radically changes relationships to self, others, nature,and the whole (Jirásek and Svoboda 2016; Quay 2013; Heintzman 2010). Itseems that the essence of these particular educational activities can be under-stood in their ambivalence of attraction and concern as a principle of spiritualdevelopment or implicit religion (Jirásek 2020).

Spiritual literacy can also be developed in adulthood with adequate meansand methods. As an example of the wonder and amazement of confrontingwhat transcends our individual existence, let us mention the principles ofsystemic constellations (Hellinger 2002, 2003), used in psychotherapy, partnerand family counselling, coaching and management, as well as in pedagogy. Thediverse links and systemic connections are formed not only by visible hierarch-ical structures, but also by unconscious emotional saturations (Welford 2014;Pritzker and Duncan 2019).

Spiritual literacy, however, is a topic that escapes a clear description of thecontent of the curriculum and penetrates rather into the world beyond words,into the realm of imagination and symbolic archetypes.

Conclusion

The re-conceptualised view of spiritual literacy as a pedagogical effort todevelop those dimensions of the human way of life that can be left in seclusionin traditional education allows the educational use of various techniques, meth-ods, means, and strategies without reference to a religious ideological back-ground. To put it more clearly: such efforts are not directed against respectablereligious traditions. It is a formulation of an effort to spiritually deepen the livesof people for whom religious life is inaccessible because they do not possess faith and therefore cannot cross the boundary of the sacred. Spiritual literacywhich is not tied to religious values, norms, and practices, rooted in philosophi-cal anthropology that perceives the spirit as a specifically human way of being,opens up opportunities for spiritual development in a fully secularised environ-ment. Unlike the terms sacred, holy, or divine, which characterise the sphere ofreligion, it prefers to anchor existence in four kinds of relationships to oneself, toother people, to nature, and to the whole, by which means the spiritual dimen-sion is fully anchored in lived reality, without the need for ontological othernessof the ‘absolutely different’, without transcending the profane into the sacred.Thus defined, spiritual literacy does not require manifestations of hierophany,i.e., the manifestation of the sacred in the profane world through faith, rituals,and doctrines in a group of fellow-believers, but at the same time it preservespossibilities of transcendence, transcending the mode of animality into spiritualdimensions through transformative experiences of wonder, amazement,beauty, love, and feelings of unification or fusion.

If cultures and civilisations differ, among other things, from religious doc-trines that find legitimate opportunities for education in church and religiousschools, it would be difficult for public education in the era of globalisation andglobal migration to prefer one religious system over another. However, in orderfor the education system not to remain a dimension of dehumanised pragmaticusability and technical application, not only to pass on information and exploi-table education but also to disseminate wisdom, it is necessary to develop notonly the cognitive characteristics of children and other participants in pedago-gical processes, but also feelings, imagery, and intuition. I am convinced that thespiritual literacy that this article defines conceptually offers such opportunities.The condition is the perception of a human being in their holistic understandingand in addition to the development of body and mind, it is necessary to developfour relationships: a relationship to oneself by cultivating skills of self-reflection,mindfulness, concentrating on the ‘here and now’, and asking questions aboutthe meaning of life; a relationship to other people through a prosocial orienta-tion, altruism, i.e., the meaning and practice of social self-transcendence, anda friendly and loving attitude; a relationship to nature through an interest inenvironmental sensitivity and affinity with the natural world and a relationshipto the whole and transcendence, with a deliberate emphasis on the ability tofeel astonishment and amazement, experiencing transcendence, deep connec-tions, harmony, or merging, i.e., not omitting even extraordinary states ofconsciousness and transformative experiences from defining what each personshould develop in their life.

Notes

18.7% of people declared they are believers identified with a church or religioussociety, while the answer ‘without religious belief’ made over two thirds (68.3%) of the answers in last census in 2021. https://www.czso.cz/csu/scitani2021/the-czso-presented-the-first-results-of-the-2021-census.

70% of the Slovak population declares a relationship to a church, religious society orreligion in 2021. https://www.scitanie.sk/en/roman-catholics-represents-56-percent-of-the-population.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.

Notes on contributor

Ivo Jirásek, Ph.D. undertakes philosophical aspects of movement culture (sport), specializes inthe field of experiential and outdoor education and the phenomenon of spiritual literacy. Hiseducation and publishing activities are at the border of the fields of pedagogy, philosophyand kinanthropology. He has recently published other articles on these topics in Journal ofHospitality & Tourism Research; Journal of Adventure Education and Outdoor Learning; Journalof Outdoor and Environmental Education; Journal of Hospitality, Leisure, Sport & TourismEducation; History of Education; Journal of Outdoor Recreation and Tourism and others.

ORCID

Ivo Jirásek http://orcid.org/0000-0003-1244-5237

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