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Preface: Two Words, Two Worlds
When we talk about spirituality, we are not always talking about the same thing. The word carries an enormous range of meanings — it can describe a feeling of peace after Sunday worship, or a decades-long meditation practice that dismantles everything you thought you were. It can name the comfort a grieving person finds in prayer, or the shattering encounter with an awareness that leaves no room for the self that walked in. These are not the same experience. They may not even be moving in the same direction.
Ken Wilber, arguably the most systematic theorist of transpersonal psychology in the Western tradition, gave us a pair of terms that allow us to hold this difference clearly without dismissing either side. He called the first kind of spirituality ‘translative’ and the second ‘transformative’.
Understanding the distinction between them is, for a student of transpersonal psychology, and for a daring practitioner, foundational — not merely as an academic exercise, but as a practical compass for one’s own inner life and, for those entering the helping professions, for the lives of clients.
Translative Spirituality
Wilber defines translative (or “legitimate”) spirituality as that which seeks to
fortify the self at its present level of development, no matter how high or low
(Wilber, 2011, ch. 12, note 20).
Translation, in his technical usage, is a horizontal movement: it reorganizes experience, provides maps and meaning, offers consolation, builds community, and equips the person with a coherent story about who they are and why life is worth living — all without vertically shifting the basic structure of consciousness itself. The self is not transcended; it is stabilized and made more coherent.
The journey of healing is often complex and deeply personal, encompassing a variety of life experiences and spiritual awakenings. Consider the grieving widow who seeks solace in her faith; her journey through loss is not just a passage of mourning, but a profound search for comfort and connection in her spiritual beliefs.
Similarly, take the example of a recovering addict who, through his involvement in a supportive religious community, begins to rebuild his shattered identity. This process helps him to redefine his purpose and rediscover his self-worth amidst the challenges of recovery.
Additionally, we can look at the student who immerses himself in contemplative practices, such as meditation or mindfulness, thereby cultivating a meaningful existence and a clearer sense of direction in life.
This is a seldom-told story written by life: an adult has a stable job, a more-or-less satisfying relationship, and so on, but deep down they feel empty. The lack of loving support in childhood has serious consequences. They had to grow up too quickly due to circumstances in their family. From the age of 13, they worked hard to help their parents earn an income. Now, even though they have an adult body, their outlook on life remains immature, childishly naive. In these situations, spirituality often serves as a comforting remedy. They find gentle solace in mantras, sacred places, and sacred geometry.
These narratives highlight the essential role that translative or descriptive spirituality plays in human development. As Wilber emphasizes, this form of spirituality is not only genuine but also crucial for individuals at various stages of their lives (Wilber, 2011, ch. 12, note 20).
However, there is a delicate balance to be pointed out. The challenge arises not from the act of translation itself, which can help convey one’s experiences and beliefs, but rather from mistaking this translation for a true transformation.
Transformation involves a bigger, more fundamental change within, while translation (examples we have seen above) may merely reflect external shifts in understanding without fostering genuine inner growth.
Transformative Spirituality
Transformative (or “authentic”) spirituality, by contrast,
seeks to transcend the self altogether (or at least transform it to a higher wave of consciousness)(Wilber, 2011, ch. 12, note 20).
In this context, the movement occurs in a vertical plane, signifying a profound shift in one’s sense of self and awareness. The centrality of the individual does not merely undergo reorganization; rather, it transcends previous limitations and is woven into a broader perspective that encompasses more than the individual experience.
This transformation is not akin to a mere rearrangement of furniture within the same room, where familiar elements remain in place. Instead, many wisdom traditions from around the world describe it as akin to a kind of death. This symbolic death signifies the end of the separate self’s illusion of being the ultimate source of experience and meaning. In this way, the individual steps beyond the narrow confines of personal identity and opens up to a richer and more profound understanding of (transpersonal, being beyond personal and above reason) existence.
Transformative spirituality, authentic spirituality, is therefore revolutionary. It does not legitimize the world; it breaks the world; it does not console the world; it shatters it. And it does not render the self content, it renders it undone.
(Wilber, 2000, “Translation Versus Transformation”)
Chögyam Trungpa, the Tibetan Buddhist Tantric teacher whose lectures in Boulder, Colorado, in 1970 and 1971 became the classic text Cutting Through Spiritual Materialism, identified precisely this terrain. He warned that the spiritual path is a subtle process and that
we can deceive ourselves into thinking we are developing spiritually when, instead, we are strengthening our egocentricity through spiritual techniques. This fundamental distortion may be referred to as spiritual materialism.
(Trungpa, 2002, p. 3)
Trungpa’s concept of spiritual materialism can be described as a very limiting approach to spiritual practice. It represents a failure in the process of translating genuine spiritual teachings into personal growth. Instead of using the practices, language, and concepts of spirituality to undergo a profound transformation of the ego, individuals may inadvertently employ them to enhance, decorate, inflate, embellish, and protect their self-centered identities. This misguided interpretation leads to a superficial engagement with spirituality, where the true essence of inner growth is lost.
The two terms — translative and transformative — do not refer to distinct spiritual traditions; rather, they represent two vital functions that can emerge in any spiritual path, practice, or moment of personal exploration. Recognizing which of these two dynamics is at play in one’s spiritual journey is essential for cultivating deeper self-awareness and understanding. This awareness serves as a cornerstone for spiritual self-knowledge.
To facilitate this process, the following twenty-one questions are designed to promote reflection and deepen your insight into these movements, guiding you toward a clearer understanding of your own spiritual life.
Twenty-One Questions and Answers
Part One: Foundations
Q1. Where do the terms “translative” and “transformative” spirituality come from, and why do they matter?
Ken Wilber introduced the terms as part of his broader integral framework for understanding consciousness and development. In The Eye of Spirit, for example, he draws a formal distinction between “translative spiritual legitimacy (on any given level) versus transformative spiritual authenticity (capacity for transformation to a higher/deeper level)” (Wilber, 2011, ch. 12, note 18).
The distinction matters because without it, students and practitioners risk confusing two genuinely different movements of the human spirit — one that makes the present self more comfortable and living more bearable, and one that fundamentally alters who and what that self is.
Mistaking the first for the second is not an abstract philosophical error; it is a practical one, with real consequences for the depth and direction of one’s inner life.
Q2. Is translative spirituality simply inferior to transformative spirituality?
No, and this is a point Wilber is careful to make. Both movements are valid and, in different moments, necessary. As he states,
Translative (or legitimate) spirituality “seeks to fortify the self at its present level of development, no matter how high or low.” Its primary goal is to “promote the health of the self at whatever level it is at, without vertically changing consciousness.” Transformative (or authentic) spirituality, on the other hand, “seeks to transcend the self altogether (or at least transform it to a higher wave of consciousness).
(Wilber, 2011, ch. 12, note 20)
The central issue does not stem from the quality of the translative approach itself; rather, it arises from the fact that translation is often the sole avenue believers pursue. When this process is confused with genuine transformation, it can lead to stagnation in one’s spiritual growth. Wilber warns of theorists who “latch onto just one narrow aspect of the spiritual impulse in humans and claim it is the only impulse worth acting on” (Wilber, 2011, ch. 12, note 20).
This danger manifests whether one becomes overly comfortable with the safety of translation or, conversely, dismisses it with contempt, misguidedly prioritizing transformation as the only valid experience. Such attitudes can hinder deeper exploration and understanding of the spiritual journey.
In short, both are needed for permanent spiritual awakening.
Q3. What does Wilber mean when he says translation is “horizontal” and transformation is “vertical”?
In Wilber’s model of consciousness, development proceeds through a series of levels or waves — each one deeper and wider than the previous. A horizontal movement is any movement that takes place within a given level: the person reorganizes their experience, refines their beliefs, expands their social network of meaning, or deepens their emotional stability — all without shifting to a fundamentally new level of awareness.
A vertical movement is a shift between levels: the self’s centrality actually moves to a new, more inclusive stage of consciousness. As Wilber puts it, “the horizontal dimension—that of translation—and the vertical dimension—that of transformation. Translation is a process of agency-in-communion… Transformation is the shift to a higher or deeper domain altogether” (Wilber, 2011, ch. 12). Both movements are real, both contribute to a life, but only the vertical movement constitutes genuine spiritual development in the deepest sense of the term.
Q4. What does it mean for a person’s “center of gravity” to shift?
Wilber uses the phrase “center of gravity” to name the level of consciousness a person most consistently inhabits — not just accesses in peak moments, but actually lives from day to day.
He distinguishes between temporarily accessing a high rung on the ladder of awareness and actually living from that level. A person
can temporarily access some very high rungs in the ladder or circle of awareness, but they refuse to actually live from those levels—they won’t actually climb up there. Their center of gravity remains quite low, even debased.
(Wilber, 2011a, “Flatland Religion”)
Transformation, in this framework, is precisely the durable shift in centrality — not the momentary visit to a higher state, but the permanent relocation of the self into a deeper or wider level of awareness.
Q5. Can a person have a profound spiritual experience and still not be transformed?
Yes, and Wilber considers this one of the most important points for students to understand. He uses the image of a “peek experience” — a glimpse of dimensions a person may not yet be able to hold or inhabit. Having such an experience is real and valuable.
But, he asks,
days, weeks, months later—where do you carry it? What happens to this experience? Where does it reside? Your actual self, your center of gravity, can only accommodate this experience according to its own structure, its own capacity, its own stage of growth. Spiritual experiences do not allow you to simply bypass the growth and development upon which enduring spiritual realization itself depends.
(Wilber, 2011a, “Flatland Religion”).
The experience is genuine; the transformation it seems to promise is not yet complete. This gap — between the state visited and the stage inhabited — is one of the most important distinctions in all of transpersonal theory.
Q6. What does Rowan mean when he describes our ordinary state of consciousness as “defensively contracted”?
John Rowan, drawing on Walsh and Vaughan, describes ordinary ego-consciousness not as a neutral baseline but as a kind of limitation wearing the disguise of normality. He quotes:
A transpersonal model views our usual consciousness as a defensively contracted state. This usual state is filled to a remarkable and unrecognized extent with a continuous flow of largely uncontrollable thoughts and fantasies which exert an extraordinarily powerful though unappreciated influence on perception, cognition, and behavior.
(Walsh & Vaughan, 1980, as cited in Rowan, 2005)
This framing is important because it establishes why translative spirituality, however valuable, cannot, by itself, resolve the deepest human predicament: if ordinary consciousness is already a contraction, then a spirituality that stabilizes and enriches that consciousness without opening it further is, at best, only making a contracted state more comfortable.
The invitation of transformative spirituality is to loosen and ultimately dissolve that contraction.
Part Two: The Shadow Side
Q7. What is spiritual materialism, and why is it such a persistent danger?
Chögyam Trungpa coined the term to describe a particular and very common form of self-deception. In his words,
Walking the spiritual path properly is a very subtle process; it is not something to jump into naively. There are numerous sidetracks which lead to a distorted, ego-centered version of spirituality; we can deceive ourselves into thinking we are developing spiritually when instead we are strengthening our egocentricity through spiritual techniques. This fundamental distortion may be referred to as spiritual materialism.
(Trungpa, 2002, p. 3)
It is persistent because the ego (the material, personal sense of the self within) is extraordinarily adaptive: it can appropriate virtually any practice, any tradition, any insight, and use it as new material for self-construction. Meditation becomes a source of pride; renunciation becomes a badge of identity; mystical experiences become currency in social hierarchies. The path intended to dissolve the self becomes, in the hands of spiritual materialism, a project to decorate and defend it.
Q8. How does spiritual materialism relate to translative spirituality?
Spiritual materialism is, in Wilber’s framework, the most seductive version of translative spirituality — seductive precisely because it uses the language, practices, and imagery of transformation while remaining firmly horizontal (lacking in depth of true transformation).
The person believes they are ascending; their center of gravity is not shifting. Trungpa is clear that this distortion is “common to all spiritual disciplines” (Trungpa, 2002, p. 4) — it is not unique to any one tradition, and it cannot be avoided simply by choosing the “right” tradition or teacher. It can only be addressed through honest and sustained self-examination, ideally in the context of a real practice with a genuine teacher.
Q9. What did Wilber call “flatland religion,” and how does it connect to this discussion?
Wilber uses the term “flatland” to describe any worldview that denies the existence of genuine depth — any hierarchy of consciousness, interior dimension, or genuine developmental unfolding.
Flatland religion is the version of spirituality produced by this denial. He describes it with pointed clarity:
Open any textbook on holistic systems theory or the new holistic scientific paradigm, and you will find an endless discussion of chaos theory, cybernetic feedback mechanisms, dissipative structures, complexity theory, global networks, systems interactions—all described in process it-language.” In these paradigms, he complains, “You will find nothing substantial on aesthetics, poetry, beauty, goodness, ethical dispositions, intersubjective development, interior illumination, transcendental intuition…
(Wilber, 2011, Introduction).
Flatland religion, or reductionist spirituality, is thus a culturally available and highly appealing form of translative spirituality — one that has pre-emptively removed the possibility of transformation by denying that there is anywhere deeper to go.
Q10. What is “defensive spirituality,” and how does a therapist recognize it?
Mark Forman, in his seminal work A Guide to Integral Psychotherapy: Complexity, Integration, and Spirituality in Practice, drawing on Battista (1996), introduces the concept of defensive spirituality to describe the clinical face of spiritual materialism within the therapeutic relationship.
Defensive spirituality uses ascending spiritual points of view — withdrawal from the world, renunciation, self-denial — in a masochistic or self-punishing fashion. In Forman’s words:
The concept of defensive spirituality highlights the negative applications of ascending spiritual points of view, practices, or experiences, noting how they can be used in a masochistic or self-denying fashion. The client employs religious life, consciously or unconsciously, as a way to disengage from human fallibility and desire. In defensive spirituality, aspects of self that are considered fleshly or sinful, such as sexuality, anger, the wish for power, success, or money, are denied or suppressed in an unhealthy fashion.
Spirituality and religious beliefs also may be used to avoid necessary changes or confrontations (i.e., asking for a raise or discussing a difficult issue with a spouse) and thus defend against perceived neediness, emotional vulnerability, or weakness. This is known colloquially in the transpersonal community as a spiritual bypass—as in using the spiritual to bypass the personal.
(Forman, 2010, p. 290)
Since Forman wrote, the construct has been studied empirically. Picciotto, Fox, and Neto (2017) define spiritual bypass as a defensive psychological posture cultivated by a tendency to privilege spiritual beliefs or experiences over and against psychological needs, creating a means of avoiding difficult emotions or experiences (Picciotto et al., 2017).
In a separate study, Fox, Cashwell, and Picciotto (2017) developed a psychometric instrument that resolved spiritual bypass into two empirically derived facets — psychological avoidance and spiritualizing — with spiritual bypass as a higher-order factor (Fox et al., 2017).
These findings give the clinician what Forman’s account anticipated but could not yet measure: a way to name, and eventually assess, the specific moves by which the spiritual is used to avoid the personal.
Q11. And what is “offensive spirituality”?
Where defensive spirituality is masochistic, offensive spirituality is narcissistic. Forman, again drawing on Battista (1996), describes it as the use of “spirituality, whether ascending or descending… to enhance and inflate the client’s sense of self, protecting the person under a guise of being special. Some of this may be expressed in terms of overt narcissism — a belief that certain spiritual experiences, insights, or practices make one immune to the problems and foibles that plague other people” (Forman, 2010, p. 294).
This is perhaps the clearest clinical expression of what Trungpa was describing: the ego that does not relinquish its grip, but instead wraps itself in spiritual identity as a particularly convincing and elusive disguise.
Q12. Did Viktor Frankl have anything to say about inauthentic religiosity?
Frankl, whose framework of logotherapy was centered on the human being’s irreducible spiritual dimension, explicitly identified what he called “existentially inauthentic religiosity.” In The Unconscious God, he describes a patient who encountered a philosopher’s rejection of those who “flee into a realm of belief and dream” — those who use religion to avoid truth rather than seek it (Frankl, 1975, p. 43).
For Frankl, authentic human existence requires freedom and responsibility — “being human is not being driven but ‘deciding what one is going to be’” (Frankl, 1975, citing Jaspers). A religiosity that serves primarily as consolation, he implies, is one that has chosen comfort over truth — the translative option, in Wilber’s terms, taken at the cost of genuine encounter with one’s existence.
Part Three: The Transformative Path
Q13. What does genuine transformation actually require of a person?
At the minimum, it requires that the person be willing to allow their present self — their present identity, beliefs, worldview, and strategies for meaning-making — to be genuinely destabilized.
Rowan, describing the transition from the mental ego to the Centaur stage, says it
always seems to involve a lot of pain and discomfort, because it means questioning all the roles one has been playing. Like all these transitions, it is dialectical — it involves negating the previous stage of development.
(Rowan, 2005, “Transitions and Breakthroughs”).
Here, we are still looking at the personal level, moving from the Mental Ego level to the Authentic one. The same goes for transpersonal awakening:
Transformative spirituality, authentic spirituality, is therefore revolutionary. It does not legitimate the world, it breaks the world; it does not console the world, it shatters it. And it does not render the self content, it renders it undone.
(Wilber, 2000, “Translation Versus Transformation”)
What makes transformation possible is not the acquisition of new spiritual information — that is, translation. It is the willingness to let the structures that have organized one’s experience genuinely come undone. This is not primarily a cognitive event; it is an existential one. And it might be a challenge.
Q14. Is transformation something we can choose, or does it appear unintended?
Both. Transformation can be cultivated deliberately through sustained practice, and it can also arrive unbidden — through loss, illness, near-death, or encounter with the numinous.
Wilber notes that among the few practices that can act as genuine “pacers of development” at higher levels are
most especially meditation and integral transformative practices; also a few forms of psychotherapy; intense artistic or athletic accomplishment… rare cases of psychedelics; holotropic breathwork and other yogic manipulations of the gross bodymind; life-threatening illness or accident; grace
(Wilber, 2011, ch. 12).
The list is notable for its range: it includes disciplines chosen deliberately, as well as gifts experienced without our deliberate intention. What appears to unite them is that each, in different ways, interrupts the self’s normal strategies for self-maintenance — the self-contraction, in Wilber’s phrase — and opens a gap in which something new can emerge.
Q15. What role does psychotherapy play in this process?
Psychotherapy occupies an interesting and somewhat paradoxical position in relation to transformative spirituality. It can function as a translative tool — helping the person reorganize their inner life, develop healthier patterns of relating, and build a more stable and coherent self.
But it can also, in the right conditions, serve transformative purposes. Rowan is direct about this, on the personal level:
It is very hard to get to the Centaur stage without going through the process of psychotherapy (or the best kind of long-term counseling), because it entails working through the unfinished business of the past, and bringing everything into the present. It entails facing the Shadow, in Jungian terms. Only in this way can a genuine existential consciousness be achieved.
(Rowan, 2005, “Centaur”)
Psychotherapy is neither inferior to spiritual practice nor a substitute for it — it is part of the territory that genuine transformation ought to traverse.
Q16. What does it mean that “psychology” and “spirituality” may not describe separate domains?
Forman makes the striking claim that, from the integral perspective, “psychology and ‘spirituality’ do not really describe separate domains, but are simply two terms used to describe the same continuum of human nature and experience. Humans are, from the Integral point of view, inherently psychospiritual” (Forman, 2010, p. 277).
This integration matters for understanding transformation: if the two domains are on a single continuum, then growth in one necessarily has implications for the other. A person who has achieved genuine spiritual transformation will also show changes in the psychological dimensions of their life — in their relationships, their emotional intelligence, and their capacity for compassion.
And conversely, unresolved psychological material will inevitably infiltrate spiritual practice, generating precisely the defensive and offensive spirituality described above.
Q17. Can a translative approach genuinely prepare a person for transformation?
Yes — and this is perhaps the most practically important point in the entire framework. A person who has been well served by translative spirituality — who has built a stable self, found genuine meaning, established a community of practice, and cultivated honesty about their own inner life — is in a far better position to undergo genuine transformation than one who has been destabilized by premature or forced encounters with transformative pressure.
Forman offers a nuanced view here, noting that “sometimes a spiritual bypass or spiritual defensiveness is actually a good thing. Sometimes a client takes a defensive stance — ignoring certain personal issues, such as sexuality or relationships — as a way to rest or marshal strength that might later be used to address pressing psychological issues” (Forman, 2010, p. 293).
This clinical intuition has since found independent support: in their phenomenological study, Picciotto, Fox, and Neto (2017) report that some theorists regard spiritual bypass as inevitable and as a natural stage of spiritual development, rather than only as a pathology to be corrected (Picciotto et al., 2017).
Translative or descriptive approach, done honestly, builds the vessel that transformation will eventually crack open. The crack is not the end of the vessel’s purpose; it is the beginning of its deeper use.
Q18. What does the Centaur stage represent, and why is it significant for spiritual development?
The Centaur stage, a term used by Hubert Benoit, Jane Alexander, and Erik Erikson and later adapted by Wilber (Wilber, 2011, ch. 12), is a name for the level of development that emerges when the mental ego’s characteristic splits — between mind and body, persona and shadow, role and authentic self — begin to heal.
Rowan describes it as the stage at which “there is a conscious emergence of the real self, an authentic self and a consequent increase in spontaneity and autonomy,” and credits it as
one of Wilber’s most important contributions. It represents at one time the end of the process of individual development within the confines, so to speak, of one’s own skin; and the beginning of the process of transpersonal development, because it breaks the mould of the mental ego.
(Rowan, 2005, “Centaur”).
The Centaur stage is significant precisely because it marks the threshold between the personal and the transpersonal — the point at which translative spirituality has, at its best, brought the person, and at which transformative spirituality proper begins.
Part Four: Integration and Application
Q19. How can a student tell, in their own practice, whether they are engaged in a translative or descriptive approach or transformation?
There are no infallible signs, but there are indicative ones. If a spiritual practice consistently increases self-esteem, social status, or a sense of being special or chosen — without a corresponding increase in genuine compassion, tolerance of uncertainty, humbleness, and willingness to be dismantled — that is a signal worth examining.
Trungpa’s formulation might be the sharpest diagnostic tool available: ask honestly whether the practice is cutting through egocentricity or strengthening it (Trungpa, 2002, p. 3).
Wilber’s question is complementary: has your center of gravity actually shifted, or are you visiting high states and returning to the same self?
The most honest test may be the simplest one Frankl implies: is your spirituality moving you toward truth, or toward consolation? (Frankl, 1975, p. 43).
Both are real needs; only one of them leads to transformation.
Q20. Is it possible to live both translationally and transformationally at once?
Not only is it possible — it appears to be necessary. No human lives in a state of permanent transformation. The great stabilizing and meaning-making functions of translative spirituality — community, ritual, prayer, narrative — are not abandoned by the transformed person; they are inhabited more lightly and more freely. The difference is that the person no longer requires them to be defended in the same way.
As Forman notes, from the integral perspective, spirituality is “not simply a set of beliefs or an exotic capacity of the human psyche, but an intrinsic component of human life” (Forman, 2010, p. 277).
The call, then, is not to abolish translation in the name of transformation, but to hold both — to allow the meaning-making functions of horizontal spirituality to serve life while remaining open to the vertical movements that periodically dissolve and reconstitute the self in ever fresh and new ways.
Q21. What, finally, is the most important thing an eager student of transpersonal theory and practices should carry from the distinction under discussion?
That spirituality is not one fixed thing, and that not all spiritual experiences, practices, or paths are pointing in the same direction. The most important habit of mind is the one implied by everything in this article: honest self-examination. Rowan, describing what mystical experience requires, notes that “authentic spiritual experience is only to be had for oneself. It cannot be given by someone else — not a person, not a book, not a sermon” (Rowan, 2005).
This is the whole point. A map — including this one — is translative or descriptive. It organizes the territory. But the territory itself, and the willingness to enter it and be changed by it: that is transformative, and no map can do it for you.
The honest student of transpersonal theory and practices holds their maps lightly, uses them rigorously, and remains willing to discover that the landscape exceeded anything the map prepared them for.
Conclusion: The Map, the Path, and the Leap
We began with a deceptively simple observation: that not all spirituality is moving in the same direction. By the time we reach the end of these twenty-one questions, what seemed like a theoretical distinction has become something more urgent — a lens through which the whole of one’s inner life comes into sharper, and sometimes more uncomfortable, focus.
The terms Wilber gave us — translative and transformative — are not a hierarchy of virtue. They do not divide seekers into the worthy and the unworthy, the serious and the dilettante. They describe, with unusual precision, two functions that are both real, both necessary, and both capable of being misused.
Translation builds the self: it furnishes it with meaning, steadies it with ritual, wraps it in community, and narrates its place in the world. These are not small gifts. A human being without them is not liberated; they are simply groundless.
Transformation, by contrast, unsettles the self at its foundations — not to destroy it, but to reveal that what we took to be the floor was, all along, a ceiling.
The great danger identified by every thinker in this article is the same danger, described in different ways: that translation will be mistaken for transformation and that the comfort of a well-furnished spiritual life will be taken as evidence of genuine inner movement.
Trungpa called it spiritual materialism — the ego, supremely adaptable, wrapping itself in robes and calling the decoration liberation (Trungpa, 2002, p. 3).
Wilber called it flatland religion — a one-step, (paraphrasing here) microwave spirituality that denies the very existence of depth in order to avoid the demand that we actually descend into it (Wilber, 2011, Introduction).
Frankl called it existentially inauthentic religiosity — the flight into belief and dream as a substitute for the harder calling of truth (Frankl, 1975, p. 43).
Three traditions, three vocabularies, one assessment.
What emerges from Forman and Rowan is that this danger is not merely abstract or philosophical — it inhabits the consulting room, the meditation hall, the religious community, the therapist’s chair. It takes clinical forms: the defensive spirituality that uses transcendence to avoid embodiment; the offensive spirituality that uses sacred identity to protect a fragile self from scrutiny (Forman, 2010).
Nor is this only a matter of theory: in the empirical literature, Picciotto, Fox, and Neto (2017) found that the lived consequences of spiritual bypass include arrested development and social disconnection (Picciotto et al., 2017). Recognizing these patterns in ourselves and in those we accompany on the path is not a cynical act. It is an act of self-empathy and care — perhaps the most demanding kind of care, because it requires that we hold the spiritual life of another person, and our own, to a standard that neither flatters nor condemns, but honestly asks: what is actually moving here?
The answer to that question takes patience. Genuine transformation, as both Wilber and Rowan insist, cannot be rushed or bypassed. The center of gravity shifts on its own timetable, through its own sequence of openings and consolidations. Rowan describes the rhythm with characteristic honesty: “there is a continual process of learning followed by breakthrough followed by consolidation, followed by new learning, and so on” (Rowan, 2005, “Transitions and Breakthroughs”).
The breakthrough is real. But so is the consolidation that follows it, the patient digestion of what has been opened, the slow inhabiting of a new and wider level of awareness. Neither phase can be skipped. And if that arc feels daunting to a student standing at its beginning, Rowan offers one of the most quietly reassuring sentences in this entire literature: that the letting-go that transformation requires, however risky it feels, always proves
less dangerous and less different than we thought at first. So the message is that all shall be well: and all manner of things shall be well.
(Rowan, 2005, “Transitions and Breakthroughs”).
That is, in the end, what this distinction is for. Not to divide spiritual seekers into categories, but to help them — and us — see more clearly the difference between a spirituality that informs and one that transforms; between a life that has learned about the territory and a life that has allowed the territory to change the one who walked through it.
The map, as Rowan reminds us, cannot give us the experience. It can only point toward it. And pointing, done honestly and rigorously, is itself a form of caring.
– Edmond Cigale, Ph.D.
References
Fox, J., Cashwell, C. S., & Picciotto, G. (2017). The opiate of the masses: Measuring spiritual bypass and its relationship to spirituality, religion, mindfulness, psychological distress, and personality. Spirituality in Clinical Practice, 4(4), 274–287. https://doi.org/10.1037/scp0000141
Forman, M. D. (2010). A guide to integral psychotherapy: Complexity, integration, and spirituality in practice. State University of New York Press.
Frankl, V. E. (1975). The unconscious God: Psychotherapy and theology. Simon and Schuster. (Original work published 1948)
Picciotto, G., Fox, J., & Neto, F. (2017). A phenomenology of spiritual bypass: Causes, consequences, and implications. Journal of Spirituality in Mental Health, 20(4), 333–354. https://doi.org/10.1080/19349637.2017.1417756
Rowan, J. (2005). The transpersonal: Spirituality in psychotherapy and counselling (2nd ed.). Routledge. https://doi.org/10.4324/9781315825137
Trungpa, C. (2002). Cutting through spiritual materialism (J. Baker & M. Casper, Eds.). Shambhala. (Original work published 1973)
Wilber, K. (2000). One taste: Daily reflections on integral spirituality (Rev. ed.). Shambhala.
Wilber, K. (2011). The eye of spirit: An integral vision for a world gone slightly mad (3rd ed., expanded). Shambhala. (Original work published 2000)
Wilber, K. (2011a). A brief history of everything (2nd ed.). Shambhala. (Original work published 1996)
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