Spirit
Spirit
A spirit is a supernatural being, often, but not exclusively, a non-physical entity; such as a ghost, fairy, or angel.[1] In English Bibles, "the Spirit" (with a capital "S"), specifically denotes the Holy Spirit.
The concepts of spirit and soul often overlap, 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. Spirit is also often used 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]
Etymology
The English word "spirit" comes from the Latin spiritus, but also "spirit, soul, courage, vigor", ultimately from a Proto-Indo-European * (s)peis. It is distinguished from Latin* animasoul" (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": 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 (نفس) opposite rūḥ (روح); Hebrew neshama (נְשָׁמָה nəšâmâh) or nephesh (נֶ֫פֶשׁ nép̄eš) (in Hebrew neshama comes from the root NŠM or "breath") opposite ruach (רוּחַ rúaħ). (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 נֶ֫פֶשׁ (root נפשׁ) and רוּחַ (root רוח), as well as cognate words in various Semitic languages, including Arabic, also preserve meanings involving miscellaneous air phenomena: "breath", "wind", and even "odour".[6][7][7])
Usage
"Spirit" has acquired a number of meanings:
Christian theology can use the term "Spirit" to describe the Holy Spirit.
Christian Science uses "Spirit" as one of seven synonyms for God, as in: "Principle; Mind; Soul; Spirit; Life; Truth; Love"[9]
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] In Mormonism, unlike 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.[11]
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): translators usually employ the English word "spirit" when trying to express the idea of such entities.
According to C. G. Jung (in a lecture delivered to the literary Society of Augsburg, 20 October 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 (Hebrew), ruch (Arabic), roho (Swahili) mean ‘spirit’ no less clearly than πνεύμα (pneuma, Greek) and spiritus (Latin).[12]
Psychical research, "In all the publications of the Society for Psychical Research the term ‘spirit’ stands for stream of consciousness whatever else it may ultimately be proved to imply or require" (James H. Hyslop, 1919).[13]
Related concepts
Similar concepts in other languages include Greek pneuma and Sanskrit [1] (see also prana). Some languages use a word for spirit often closely related (if not synonymous) to mind. Examples include the German Geist (related to the English word ghost) or the French l'esprit. English versions of the Bible most commonly translate the Hebrew word ruach (רוח; wind) as "the spirit", whose essence is divine.[14]
Alternatively, Hebrew texts commonly use the word nephesh. Kabbalists regard nephesh as one of the five parts of the Jewish soul, where nephesh (animal) refers to the physical being and its animal instincts. Similarly, Scandinavian, Baltic, and Slavic languages, as well as Chinese (气 qi), use the words for breath to express concepts similar to "the spirit".[1]
See also
Brahman
Daemon (classical mythology)
Deva
Dokkaebi
Ekam
Geisteswissenschaft
Great Spirit or Wakan Tanka is a term for the Supreme Being.
Philosophy of religion
Pneumatology
Soul dualism
Sprite (folklore)
Spiritualism
Spiritism
Spiritism
Spirit world (Latter Day Saints)
Spirit world (Spiritualism)