Nigelswift you dude! That's fascinating stuff. Here's a few random thoughts (in fairly random order):
- Its so hard to talk about any of these things using the language we have. Most English words dealing with these matters have acquired unhelpful connotations from 2000 years of Christianity and, in more recent times, from the new agers. Take "spiritual" - I hate using this word because it is usually taken in a "new age" or a "dark age" (ie. dogmatically religious) sense. But there ain't no other word so I guess I'm stuck with it! I surely prefer it to "religious".
- I'm absolutely with you on the aesthetics thing. I think all I would add to what you've already stated so eloquently is that beauty, the aim of aesthetics, is (for me, I mean) a highly spiritual thing! There's that word again - what I mean is that beauty is good for the soul, that being in beautiful surroundings is good for people. I think we'd all agree on that one! I guess the only other thing I have to say here is that I believe the ancient monuments of Britain to be works of art (I'd like to put that in the singular but I'm not too sure!). Aesthetics is the language of art, but the most satisfying art also carries a message. I've discussed this in my "Subject, Object & Landscape" essay though so I'll not go on about it!
- There are some connotations of the word "spirit" that I do not like, that make talk using that word easily misunderstood. What I'm uncomfortable about is that it imposes a duality on the world that can all too often become a division: the material world vs. the spiritual world. My feeling is that its exactly this view of the world that lies behind the big dogmatic religions, which, of course, will all tell you that the material world is inferior to the spiritual world. The Gnostics, a branch of early Christianity, taught that the material world is nothing but a prison for the soul, that we are each of us souls incarcerated in matter. Blake believed pretty much the same thing: that the Biblical "fall" from grace (actually only sort of implied in the Bible and derived more from Milton's Paradise Lost) was the fall of our collective soul into the imprisoning chains of matter. I could not disagree more! Just look at the beauty of the natural world - this is no prison. Where am I going with all this? I'm just trying to say, I suppose, that I find my spirituality in the material world. I have no need to go looking for other realities when (most of!) this one is so beautiful and inspiring. I certainly agree with Julian when he talks about worshipping only what he can see. Of course I wouldn't swing from one extreme to the other, mind (ie. from distrust of all "worldly things" to rampant materialism). Balance in everything. But I strongly believe that we are, at least here and now, physical, material creatures with bodies, and that therefore we should concern ourselves largely with the material, physical world. "Don't tell be 'bout your heaven in the hereafter, but set to building heaven in the here & now" is my cry!
