Spiritual Authoritarianism

Spiritual Authoritarianism refers to conceptions of spirituality that claim Absolute Truth is known by a cognitive or spiritual elite, who are therefore entitled to direct the spiritual path of the followers.

It includes the phenomena of spiritual masters or guru's described below in the quote by John Heron.

Opposed to spiritual authoritarianism is the conception of a Participatory Spirituality.

Citations

John Heron, describing the earlier phases in the evolution of spiritual culture as related to the guru phenomenom:

"There seem to be four phases in the guru phenomenon in the West. (the fourth phase is described in the running text)

(1) In the late decades of the nineteenth century and early decades of the twentieth century, there was just a small guru-invasion from the East with key players like VivekanaNda and the spread of the Vedanta movement in the West.

(2) Then post-war from 1945 with the publication of Huxley's The Perennial Philosophy, there started a major guru-invasion from the East including the dramatic spread through the 60s and the 70s of Zen and Tibetan Buddhism in the USA and Europe.

(3) In the third phase, over the last thirty years or so, alongside the guru-invasion from the East there has been the growing phenomenon of homegrown Western gurus and spiritual teachers claiming the special status of 'enlightenment'." (personal communication, March 2005)

More Information

Guruphiliax, is one of the sites monitoring spiritual abuse, at http://guruphiliac.blogspot.com/

See the Delicious tag at http://del.icio.us/mbauwens/Spiritual-Authoritarianism