Spirituality is explained critically from a holistic standpoint in this century. Historically, spirituality was knit tightly to religion—only because religion was the main source of knowledge up until a few centuries ago—and involved a lot of ritualism and superstition. The advent of science has shaken those religious positions to the core, even loosening the bond between spirituality and religion. Regrettably, science hasn’t offered a better explanation of the unseen Spirit therefore seekers take an inclusive approach to spirituality.

In the 19^th century, Mary Baker Eddy had no problem with a holistic standpoint. Spirit was seen as scientifically provable. Moreover, Eddy reversed the conventional beliefs that religion and science influence spirituality, and taught rather a spirituality that influenced both religion and science.

The practice of spirituality has always been a complex and eccentric part of human life. It is valued and regarded mostly for its beneficial attributes of adding empathy and insight to the religious and scientific consciousness. Some cultures honor spirituality for its therapeutic properties.

A holistic approach to spirituality is welcoming and lasting. It precludes the assumption that spirit can be trapped in a language, a ritual, a medical treatment, or a physical law. A scientific spirituality includes the ability to detect and record mounting evidence of an unseen Spirit and divine laws greater than can be humanly imagined.

Let’s take a look at passages from a series of books that show the broadness and magnitude of an inclusive spirituality that overcomes the baneful curses and fears and chaos humanity is vulnerable to.

From the book, Night, by Elie Wiesel:

“One day when Idek was venting his fury, I happened to cross his path. He threw himself on me like a wild beast, beating me in the chest, on my head, throwing me to the ground and picking me up again, crushing me with ever more violent blows, until I was covered in blood. As I bit my lips in order not to howl with pain, he must have mistaken my silence for defiance and so he continued to hit me harder and harder.

Abruptly, he calmed down and sent me back to work as if nothing had happened. As if we had taken part in a game in which both roles were of equal importance.

I dragged myself to my corner I was aching all over. I felt a cool hand wiping the blood from my forehead. It was the French girl. She was smiling her mournful smile as she slipped me a crust of bread. She looked straight into my eyes. I knew she wanted to talk to me but that she was paralyzed with fear. She remained like that for some time, and then her face lit up and she said, in almost perfect German: ‘Bite your lips, little brother…Don’t cry. Keep your anger, your hate, for another day, for later. The day will come but not now…Wait. Clench your teeth and wait…’”

Years later, Elie Wiesel, after surviving Hitler’s concentration camps, met that woman and they acknowledged the tie of spirituality that did not betray them.

From the book, Doing Nothing, by Steven Harrison:

“As science finally recognizes mysticism as its own, the shift of view, the shift of consciousness will change our medical reality.

In that shift, we may see the application of consciousness to the challenges of health and disease. Only recently has mainstream medicine recognized the intuitively obvious: that relaxation affects heart health, that visualization affects immune function, that the repetition of sound or mantras affects blood pressure and other body systems, that prayer heals.”

From A Course in Miracles:

“Appearances deceive, but can be changed. Reality is changeless. It does not deceive at all, and if you fail to see beyond appearance you are deceived. For everything y see will change, and yet you thought it real before, and now you think it real again. Reality is thus reduced to form, and capable of change. Reality is changeless. It is this that makes it real, and keeps it separate from all appearances. It must transcend all form to be itself. It cannot change.”