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Faith in God
The spiritual Dimension
The sacred
Miracles and exceptions to the natural order
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Cosmic Beings: God, gods, angels, demons of a world
separate from this one
Cosmic forces: kismet, fate, karma, or impersonal cosmic forces
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(Excluded Middle)
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Folk religion: local gods and goddesses, ancestors, spirits,
demons, ghosts
Psychic phenomena: curses, blessings, special powers,
astrological forces, evil eye
Physical phenomena: magical rites, charms, amulets, firewalking,
embedded charms, psychic surgery
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Sight and experience
The natural order
Secular definition
Empirical methodology
Mechanical analogies
Sense experience
Experimentation and proof
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Directly observable sensory phenomena, knowledge based
on experimentation and replication
Interaction of human beings or interaction of natural objects based on
natural forces
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Psychological Issues in Spirituality (original url) contrasts the western dualistic-supernaturalist perspective, with its excluded middle (occult and psychic phenomena, which would be too threatening to both secular materialism and the narrowly fundamentalist interpretation of Christian religion) with the perennial philosophy's multitiered view. The Three-Tiered View shown here is identical to the four-tier model proposed by Professor Huston Smith, except that it fails to include the Mystical dimension of Pure Spirit as a seperate hypostasis, this would of course constitute a fourth tier on top of the three shown here
