Spirit

A spirit is a supernatural being, often but not exclusively a non-physical entity; such as a ghost, fairy, or angel.[1] The concepts of a
person's spirit and soul, often also overlap, as both are either contrasted with or given ontological priority over the body 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. In EnglishBibles, "the Spirit" (with a capital "S"), specifically denotes theHoly Spirit.

Spirit is often used metaphysically 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]

Contents
Etymology
Spiritual and metaphysical usage
Related concepts
See also
References
Further reading
External links

Etymology
The English word "spirit" comes from the Latin spiritus, meaning "breath", but also "spirit, soul, courage, vigor", ultimately from a
Proto-Indo-European *(s)peis. It is distinguished from Latin anima, "soul" (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": *bhes-, 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 (‫ )ﻧﻔﺲ‬opposite rūħ (‫ ;)روح‬Hebrew neshama (‫ נְ שָׁ מָ ה‬nəšâmâh) or nephesh ‫ ֶנ֫פֶ שׁ‬nép̄eš (in Hebrew neshama
comes from the root NŠM or "breath") opposite ruach (‫רוּח‬
ַ 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 ‫( ֶנ֫פֶ שׁ‬root
‫ )נפשׁ‬and ‫רוּח‬
ַ (root ‫)רוח‬, as well as cognate words in various Semitic languages, including Arabic, also preserve meanings
[6][7][8]
involving misc. air phenomena: "breath", "wind", and even "odour").

Spiritual and metaphysical usage

In spiritual and metaphysical terms, "spirit" has acquired a number of meanings:

An incorporeal but ubiquitous, non-quantifiable substance orenergy present individually in all living things.Unlike the
concept of 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.[9]
A daemon, sprite, or ghost. People usually conceive of a ghost as a wandering spirit from a being no longer living,
having survived the death of the body yet maintaining at least vestiges of
mind and consciousness.
 having survived the death of the body yet maintaining at least vestiges of mind and consciousness.
In religion and spirituality, the respiration of a human has for obvious reasons become seen as strongly linked with
the very occurrence of life. Spirit, in this sense, means the thing that separates a living body from a corpse—and
usually implies intelligence, consciousness, and sentience.
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]
Various forms of animism, such as Japan's Shinto and African traditional religion, focus on invisible beings that
represent or connect with plants, animals, orlandforms (kami): translators usually employ the English word "spirit"
when trying to express the idea of such entities.
Individual spirits envisaged as interconnected with all other spirits and with "The Spirit" at 300am (singular and
capitalized). This concept relates to theories of a unifiedspirituality, to universal consciousnessand to some
concepts of Deity. In this scenario all separate "spirits", when connected, form a greater unity , the Spirit, which has
an identity separate from its elements plus aconsciousness and intellect greater than its elements; an ultimate,
unified, non-dual awareness or force of life combining or transcending all individual units of consciousness. The
experience of such a connection can become a primary basis forspiritual belief. The term spirit occurs in this sense
in (to name but a few) Anthroposophy, Aurobindo, A Course In Miracles, Hegel, Ken Wilber, and Meher Baba
(though in his teachings, "spirits" are onlyapparently separate from each other and from "The Spirit.") [11] In this use,
the term seems conceptually identical toPlotinus's "The One" and Friedrich Schelling's "Absolute". Similarly,
according to the panentheistic/pantheistic view, Spirit equates to essence that can manifest itself asmind/soul
through any level in pantheistichierarchy/holarchy, such as through a mind/soul of a single cell (with very primitive,
elemental consciousness), or through a human or animal mind/soul (with consciousness on a level of organic
synergy of an individual human/animal), or through a (superior) mind/soul with synergetically extremely
complex/sophisticated consciousness of whole galaxies involving all sub-levels, all emanating (since the superior
mind/soul operates non-dimensionally, or trans-dimensionally) from the one Spirit.
Christian spiritual theology can use the term "Spirit" to describeGod, or aspects of God — as in the H " oly Spirit",
referring to a Triune God (Trinity) (cf Gospel of Matthew 28:19).
Pneumatology is the study of spiritual beings and phenomena, especially the spiritual aspect of human beings and
the interactions between humans andGod.
Christian Science uses "Spirit" as one of the seven synonyms forGod, as in: "Principle; Mind; Soul; Spirit; Life;
Truth; Love"[12]
According to C. G. Jung (in a lecture delivered to the literary Society of Augsburg, October 20, 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, ruch, roho
[13]
(Hebrew, Arabic, Swahili) mean ‘spirit’ no less clearly than the Greek πνεύμα and the Latin spiritus.

Psychical research, "In all the publications of the Society for Psychical Research the term 'spirit' stands for
the
personal stream of consciousnesswhatever else it may ultimately be proved to imply or require," wroteJames H.
Hyslop, secretary-treasurer of theAmerican Society for Psychical Researchin 1919.[14]
In mysticism: existence in unity withGodhead. Soul may also equate with spirit, but the soul involves a certain
individual human consciousness, while spirit comes from beyond that. Compare the psychological teaching Al- of
Ghazali.

Related concepts
Similar concepts in other languages include Greek pneuma and Sanskrit akasha/atman[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" (‫" ;רוח‬wind")
as "the spirit", whose essence is divine[15] (see Holy Spirit and ruach hakodesh). 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
Angel
Brahman
Deva
Ekam
Geisteswissenschaft
Great Spirit or Wakan Tanka is a term for the Supreme Being.
Jinn
Philosophy of religion
Soul dualism
Spiritualism
Spiritism
Spirit world

References
1. François 2009, p.187-197.
2. OED "spirit 2.a.: The soul of a person, as commended to God, or passing out of the body
, in the moment of death."
3. Burtt, Edwin A. (2003).Metaphysical Foundations of Modern Physical Science
. Mineola, New York: Dover
Publications, Inc. p. 275.
4. anə-, from *ə2enə1-. Watkins, Calvert. 2000. The American Heritage® Dictionary of Indo-European Roots, second
edition. Boston: Houghton-Mifflin Co., p.4. Also available online (https://web.archive.org/web/20071208010420/http://
www.bartleby.com/61/roots/IE17.html). (NB: Watkins uses ə1, ə2, ə3 as fully equivalent variants forh1, h2, h3,
respectively, for the notation of Proto-Indo-European laryngeal segments.)
5. bhes-2. Watkins, Calvert. 2000. The American Heritage® Dictionary of Indo-European Roots, second edition.
Boston: Houghton-Mifflin Co., 2000, p.11. Also available online (https://web.archive.org/web/20071208011042/http://
www.bartleby.com/61/roots/IE60.html)
6. Koehler, L., Baumgartner, W., Richardson, M. E. J., & Stamm, J. J. (1999). The Hebrew and Aramaic lexicon of the
Old Testament (electronic ed.) (711). Leiden;New York: E.J. Brill.
7. Brown, F., Driver, S. R., & Briggs, C. A. (2000). Enhanced Brown-Driver-Briggs Hebrew an
d English Lexicon
(electronic ed.) (659). Oak Harbor, WA: Logos Research Systems. (N.B. Corresponds closely to printed editions.)
8. Brown, F., Driver, S. R., & Briggs, C. A. (2000). Enhanced Brown-Driver-Briggs Hebrew an
d English Lexicon
(electronic ed.) (924ff.). Oak Harbor, WA: Logos Research Systems. (N.B. Corresponds closely to printed editions.)
9. "Human Nature and the Purpose of Existence"(http://www.patheos.com/Library/Mormonism/Beliefs/Human-Nature-a
nd-the-Purpose-of-Existence.html).
10. Doctrine and Covenants131:7 (http://lds.org/scriptures/dc-testament/dc/131?lang=eng)
11. Kalchuri, Bhau: Meher Prabhu: Lord Meher(http://www.lordmeher.org/), Volume Eighteen, Manifestation, Inc., 1986,
p. 5937.
12. Eddy, Mary Baker (1875). "Glossary" (http://www.gutenberg.org/dirs/etext02/shkts11.txt). Science and Health With
Key to the Scriptures (TXT). p. 587. Retrieved 2009-03-11. "GOD. The great I AM; the all-knowing, all-seeing, all-
acting, all-wise, all-loving, and eternal; Principle; Mind; Soul; Spirit; Life; ruth;
T Love; all substance; intelligence." —
"Glossary" entry for "GOD".
13. Hull, R. F. C. (1960). The Collected Works of C. G. Jung Vol 8 Chapter "Spirit and Life". New York, New York:
Pantheon Books for Bollinger Series XX. pp. 319, 320.
14. Hyslop, James Hervey (1919).Contact With The Other World (First ed.). New York: The Century Co. p. 11.
15. Ruach: Spirit or Wind or ???(https://web.archive.org/web/20151006125829/http://www
.biblicalheritage.org/Bible%20
Studies/ruach.htm) at BiblicalHeritage.org
Further reading
François, Alexandre (2008), "Semantic maps and the typology of colexification: Intertwining polysemous networks
across languages", in Vanhove, Martine, From Polysemy to Semantic change: T owards a Typology of Lexical
Semantic Associations, Studies in Language Companion Series,106, Amsterdam, New York: Benjamins, pp. 163–
215
Baba, Meher (1967). Discourses. San Francisco: Sufism Reoriented.ISBN 1-880619-09-1.

External links
The dictionary definition ofspirit at Wiktionary
Quotations related to Spirit at Wikiquote

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