What is Spiritual Development

Spiritual development is often talked about with magical practices, but it is not often defined. What actually makes up spiritual development and how does one do it? We will look at these topics in this blog.

Many people believe that spiritual development is doing the right thing. They may become vegetarian, practice yoga, try to love everyone or live a more liberal lifestyle and claim that it is spiritual. This is not the case however. There are plenty of spiritual people who do not do these things yet are very spiritual. Acting spiritual does not make you any more spiritual than anyone else, much the same as going to church every Sunday does not make you Christian. Speak of, being spiritual does not mean that you have to be religious. Religion is an act of faith. Spirituality is an experience based on action.

Spirituality is the refinement of yourself, and the qualities that make up your psyche. It is hinted at in alchemy, which talks about transforming lead into gold. What this really refers to is changing the less refined parts of yourself into a higher quality part. Alchemy separated this process into seven alchemical processes: calcification (reducing to principle atoms without burning), sublimation (extraction by volatilization or distillation), solution (dissolving a solution into a liquid), putrefaction (the appearance of blackness), distillation (boiling a liquid until it is vaporized, and recondensing it by cooling), coagulation (solidification of a mass due to loss of water or solvent) and tincture (use of the separated solid). All of this may sound really complicated, but it can be boiled down to a series of basic work which you can easily perform. 

The thing to understand is that there are different parts that compose you. There is a physical body, an emotional body, a mental body and a spiritual body. In magical practice we equate these with the four elements of earth, water, air and fire respectively. The process of spiritual development is done through the refining of these four bodies. Now, this does not just mean change your eating patterns, change your emotions, change your thoughts and go to church. These are all effects of the respective body. We want to change the cause.

We do this magically through balancing the elemental energies within us. This is a systematic process taking you through each element where you learn to feel the elemental energies and, through use and practice balance each in turn. As you do this many things will happen. The way you feel about things will change. You will let go of limiting beliefs and thoughts. You will make better life decisions and you will find your life changing in many ways. Now, you can consciously choose to make those changes now. There is nothing stopping you other than yourself. But that will be just changing your action and not the underlying cause of that action. Making the change without doing the work is, in essence, pointless because at some point your inner nature will push through those changes. You must do the work.

The process usually consists of working through the elements through meditation and certain ritual practices designed to bring about a change within yourself. The order that you work through the elements in is very important. You must start with earth. If you try air without earth you can become air-headed and given to flights of fantasy. If you try water without earth, you may drown in your own emotions. If you try fire without water you may burn out seeking your desires. Of course, there is the risk of becoming lazy and lethargic in earth if you do not have the fire of desire to grow spiritually that will push you forward on your work.

So, what do you get when you have done all of this work? Well, apart from becoming a better person, there is a fifth element: spirit. This is known in alchemy as quintessence, or the Philosophers Stone. This is your true spiritual nature, above and beyond the elemental energies. When you attain the reconnection with your true spiritual nature, sometimes called the higher self or the Christ Consciousness, you are able to understand not only your place in the scheme of creation, but how these energies work and are connected together and, under the guidance of the higher self, direct those energies to make changes in your world. 

In a short description this is, in essence, the goal of magic: to be able to transform your reality. But this transformation begins with yourself. You must do the work first. Most religions have this backwards. They believe that you join the religion, become “saved” (or whatever their equivalent is) and the higher energy transforms you. But this is backwards. You must transform yourself, and prepare the temple, so that the higher energies can come into you. Then you experience the true promises of that belief. Belief without the right kind of action is useless.