Summary
Title: Spiritual Clarity
Author: Jackie Wellman
Publisher: PublishAmerica
ISBN: 141377654X
Pro:
• Nice introduction to religious critique and personal spiritual exploration
Con:
• Misdefines atheism; defines religion a bit broadly
Description:
• Analysis of religious history, beliefs, and errors
• Explores how religion can be a force for harm
• Argues that spirituality can be achieved without religion
Book Review
It would be nice if more people took the time to engage in critical, skeptical reflection on religion, religious history, and religious doctrines, but for now we’ll have to settle for a few intrepid individuals who would rather buck tradition than go with the flow. One is Jackie Wellman, who has published the fruits of her reflections, research, and investigations in the book Spiritual Clarity.
What is the “clarity” which Wellman believes she has achieved? In short, it’s the realization that one doesn’t have to be religious in order to be a good person and that one can be “spiritual” without belonging to any organized church or religious organization. This isn’t a radical conclusion and does, in fact, stand well within the traditions of American individualism where religion is concerned.
Wellman is part of a long line of American religious believers going back to 17th century Quakers, Transcendentalism, Spiritualism, and the modern proliferation of “spirituality” as an alleged replacement for religion, the history of which is recounted in Amanda Porterfield’s The Transformation of American Religion.
Common to a lot of this, and something which Wellman occasionally shares, is the claim that “spirituality” is fundamentally different from “religion” or that violent religion is somehow “false” while peaceful religion is somehow “genuine.” So there is nothing especially unusual in this, except that most people who go through this sort of transformation don’t set pen to paper to share their experiences.
I would suggest, though, that Wellman may have hit upon something even deeper before passing by it:
- “It was always a mystery to me how anyone could be satisfied with his or her present amount of knowledge about anything. I read books and articles from each of the many viewpoints about religion to get a more complete understanding of how religion affects people, studied the different kinds of religions, and asked a lot of questions. Basically, all of this was how I achieved spiritual clarity. I really do think that after 37 years I finally get it.”
It seems to me that she was on more solid footing before the final two sentences: if a person isn’t satisfied with the amount of knowledge they have, then they can’t be satisfied with the conclusions based upon that knowledge. If a person is satisfied with their conclusions, that suggests they are satisfied with the knowledge they used to reach those conclusions.
Wellman started out dissatisfied with her knowledge and hence her conclusions — the traditional religious beliefs she grew up with. She doubted, which is an active and skeptical engagement with ideas as opposed to more passive uncertainty, and that’s undeniably good. It appears, though, that she ended up back at a position of certainty (“clarity”). It seems to me that she actually achieved “clarity” at the outset: the clarity that one shouldn’t be satisfied and should keep learning, keep doubting, and keep questioning — even questioning one’s own conclusions. Somewhere, though, this clarity may have become a little foggy
Wellman misdefines atheism while defining religion too broadly, but problems like these don’t detract too much from the book. If you are well along your own exploration of religion and philosophy, it’s unlikely that you’ll find much here of great use; if you’re just starting out, though, I can see how Wellman’s book may offer ideas and insights that will help you find some direction early on.
