Spirituality: Flexibility or Chaos?

Flexibility or chaos?

Spirituality Is Diverse Even In Its Unity

Spirituality lacks an institutional body that polices the beliefs and behaviors of practitioners. There is a more personal accountability expected from the believer. There is more diversity of beliefs found in spiritual circles than in religious circles because of the lack of scriptures, dogma, and uniformity policed by elders. Whereas religion has a community focus, spirituality tends to have an individualistic dynamic. Spiritualists may form communities and worship together, but there is rarely an attempt to organize on an institutional basis. When communities do become formal spiritual bodies, they do so to preserve local traditions and culture.

Vodun As A Prime Example

West African Vodun is the parent religion of Haitian Vodou and 21 Divisions, and understanding it helps us to understand the dynamic of spirituality well. In Benin, Togo, and Ghana, Vodun practitioners are devoted to many of the same spirits, but the way they worship and serve them can be very different. In fact, it could be said that Africa has various Vodun cults interspersed throughout these countries. Each cult has its own customs and traditions that have evolved in different circumstances. Vodun will seem very amorphous and malleable to the western religious mind. Unlike Western religions, Vodun has no central scripture, dogma or institutional authority. It is an oral and experiential system focused on maintaining harmony with the spirit world. Practitioners seek connection with the vodun spirits - known in the diaspora as lwa or misterios. This makes Vodun a prime example of spirituality that is unified in essence but diverse in expression.

Flexibility Led To Survival

Enslaved Africans brought from West Africa had served their spirits in the same way they had for generations. Upon arriving in the Caribbean, they found themselves surrounded by people from different tribes, each with their own deities, and without access to many of the materials they had used back home. To adapt, they merged practices, spirits, and communities - an  act of spiritual resilience that ensured their traditions would survive. This adaptability would not have been possible if they held rigid, fundamentalistic religious views.

Understandably, enslaved Africans had to organize and formalize aspects of their spirituality to preserve their ancestral ways. This is why today Vodou is recognized by some to be a formal religion. Some practices are kept secret from the uninitiated, and there are protocols for serving the lwa (spirits). In this sense, Vodou has religious characteristics. However,unlike western religions,Vodou varies significantly by region—some families even honor lwa unique to their lineage. Despite these differences, Vodou communities often recognize each other as fellow vodouizants, united by shared values and spiritual heritage.

Devotion Is What Binds Spiritual People Together

In spiritual communities, what binds people together is  devotion to the spirits, not adherence to formal dogmas. Rituals are preserved not because they are mandated by doctrine, but because they produce meaningful results for practitioners. This stands in contrast to the Abrahamic religious model, which often emphasizes uniformity of belief and practice as a sign of faith and communal identity.

The next installment of this series will explore the pros and cons of both spirituality and religion.