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Frank Visser, graduated as a psychologist of culture and religion, founded IntegralWorld in 1997. He worked as production manager for various publishing houses and as service manager for various internet companies and lives in Amsterdam. Books: Ken Wilber: Thought as Passion (SUNY, 2003), and The Corona Conspiracy: Combatting Disinformation about the Coronavirus (Kindle, 2020).

Can mystical spirituality thrive in the modern world?

Frank Visser / ChatGPT

In an age defined by science, technology, and empirical verification, spiritual-metaphysical worldviews face profound challenges. While such worldviews once provided cohesive explanations for the cosmos, human purpose, and moral order, they now struggle to maintain intellectual credibility in the modern context. This is not necessarily due to a loss of meaning or relevance, but because certain foundational assumptions underpinning these worldviews conflict with the dominant epistemic norms of modernity. This essay outlines the key assumptions that make spiritual-metaphysical worldviews difficult to believe today.

1. The Assumption of a Non-Empirical Reality

At the core of many spiritual and metaphysical worldviews lies the belief in a transcendent, non-empirical dimension—whether it be a realm of spirit, divine intelligence, or cosmic consciousness. This domain is typically considered inaccessible to sensory perception or scientific measurement, yet it is posited as more real, more fundamental, or more meaningful than the material world.

In contrast, modern epistemology privileges empirical evidence and intersubjective verification. The sciences proceed through observation, experimentation, and falsifiability. Claims about non-empirical realms often fall outside the scope of testability and thus are increasingly treated as speculative or even irrelevant. The rise of physicalism—where everything real is considered physical or dependent on physical processes—has further marginalized metaphysical claims that cannot be anchored in observable phenomena.

2. The Assumption of Cosmic Purpose or Teleology

Most spiritual worldviews posit that the universe has an inherent purpose or direction—often toward greater unity, love, complexity, or spiritual realization. This teleological view sees evolution not as a random or blind process, but as guided or imbued with meaning.

However, modern science—especially evolutionary biology—rests on the assumption of non-teleological processes. Natural selection, genetic drift, and environmental pressures offer mechanistic explanations for the complexity of life without appealing to cosmic intention. Attempts to reintroduce purpose (e.g. through intelligent design, panpsychism, or spiritual evolutionism) often appear as theological smuggling or category errors, especially when they dress metaphysical belief in scientific language without meeting its methodological standards.

3. The Assumption of Privileged Access to Truth through Intuition or Revelation

Spiritual-metaphysical systems often assert that certain individuals—mystics, sages, or prophets—have access to truths that transcend ordinary experience or reason. These truths are said to be intuited, revealed, or realized in states of higher consciousness. They are then taken as authoritative accounts of reality.

Modern thought, however, is shaped by epistemic humility and democratic access to knowledge. The Enlightenment ideal privileges critical thinking, peer review, and skepticism toward unverified authority. Mystical or revelatory claims are viewed with suspicion, especially when they are unfalsifiable or contradict established scientific knowledge. Appeals to inner knowing or direct experience may carry personal significance but lack intersubjective reliability, making them a weak foundation for shared metaphysics.

4. The Assumption of an Immortal Soul or Afterlife

The belief in a soul that survives bodily death remains central to many spiritual traditions. It provides existential comfort, moral structure, and a framework for cosmic justice. Yet in the modern era, consciousness is increasingly understood as an emergent property of brain function. Neurology, psychology, and cognitive science have all contributed to a view where mind and selfhood are deeply dependent on—and likely extinguished with—the brain.

While there are ongoing debates about the hard problem of consciousness, empirical research has yet to produce credible evidence for personal survival after death. The spiritualist appeal to reincarnation, near-death experiences, or mediumship remains fringe and contested. In the absence of robust proof, belief in an immortal soul often requires a leap of faith that conflicts with the critical realism of modern inquiry.

5. The Assumption of a Moral Order Rooted in the Cosmos

Spiritual-metaphysical systems frequently claim that the universe is imbued with moral structure—that there is cosmic justice, karmic balance, or divine reward and punishment. This view renders morality objective and eternal, reflecting a higher order rather than mere social convention.

Modern secular ethics, by contrast, often emerge from humanistic, evolutionary, or contractarian frameworks. Morality is seen as contingent on human flourishing, social cooperation, or cultural consensus—not on metaphysical absolutes. The idea of cosmic morality may seem comforting, but to the modern mind it risks being conflated with wishful thinking, projection, or anthropomorphism.

6. The Assumption that Meaning Is Objective and Cosmic

Spiritual worldviews tend to assert that life has a built-in purpose—assigned by a creator, embedded in the cosmos, or discoverable through spiritual insight. In the modern world, however, existential meaning is more often understood as something humans must create for themselves. The “death of God,” as proclaimed by Nietzsche, ushered in a century of existentialist thought that replaced cosmic meaning with human responsibility.

This shift doesn't necessarily lead to nihilism. Many moderns find profound meaning in relationships, creativity, exploration, and service—but these meanings are self-authored and historically contingent. The spiritual claim that meaning is objective, eternal, and metaphysically grounded often feels out of step with modern pluralism and moral maturity.

7. The Crisis of Legitimacy in Traditional and Mystical Spirituality

Ken Wilber has insightfully noted that traditional religions face a legitimacy crisis in the modern and postmodern world. Their mythic-literal frameworks—stories of divine intervention, supernatural beings, and scriptural absolutism—no longer resonate with those shaped by historical criticism, scientific cosmology, and pluralistic ethics. Once taken as literal truths, religious doctrines are increasingly viewed as symbolic narratives at best, and regressive dogmas at worst.

But the question remains: can mystical spirituality—stripped of mythic literalism—survive the same critical scrutiny?

Mysticism often claims to transcend dogma by offering direct experience of the divine or ultimate reality. Unlike traditional belief systems, it emphasizes inward realization over external authority. In theory, this places it closer to modern experiential epistemologies. However, mystical spirituality faces its own challenges. Its subjective insights are often elevated to metaphysical truths without independent verification. While compelling to the practitioner, such experiences are not immune to psychological explanation, cultural conditioning, or cognitive bias. Moreover, the claims of mystics often diverge widely across cultures—raising questions about their universality.

In the secular age, mystical spirituality may persist—but likely in a more psychologized, metaphorical, or therapeutic form. It might be reframed as a way of accessing altered states of consciousness, cultivating compassion, or achieving existential integration—without requiring belief in metaphysical realities. Whether this evolution counts as the survival of mysticism or its transformation into secular mindfulness is open to interpretation. What is clear, however, is that even the most refined forms of spirituality must grapple with the same legitimacy crisis if they cannot bridge the gap between personal insight and shared knowledge.

Conclusion: A Crisis of Plausibility—Even for Mysticism

The difficulty in believing spiritual-metaphysical worldviews in the modern world arises not primarily from hostility to religion or a lack of spiritual yearning, but from a shift in epistemic and metaphysical assumptions. The modern worldview—shaped by centuries of philosophical skepticism, scientific discovery, and cultural relativism—places a high burden of proof on claims about non-empirical realities, cosmic purpose, or supernatural agency.

Ken Wilber has rightly pointed out that traditional religions suffer from a legitimacy crisis: their mythic narratives can no longer be taken literally by educated minds shaped by science and historical awareness. Yet the same challenge confronts mystical spirituality. While it may avoid the dogmatism of traditional religion, its claims to direct, transrational knowledge still rest on private experience that lacks public verification. In a secular context that prizes intersubjectivity and empirical accountability, even mysticism must evolve or risk being dismissed as another form of subjective projection or spiritualized romanticism.

This does not mean that spirituality in all its forms is obsolete. Many continue to draw strength, community, and existential insight from spiritual practices and narratives. But for such views to gain wider credibility today, they must either (a) be reinterpreted in psychological or symbolic terms, or (b) demonstrate coherence with rational inquiry and empirical understanding.

Until such integration is achieved, both traditional and mystical spiritual worldviews will likely remain on the margins of modern discourse—not necessarily rejected, but regarded with cautious detachment. Their beauty and depth may still inspire, but their truth-claims will continue to face a crisis of plausibility in a world increasingly shaped by critical reason.