In lieu of an abstract, below is the essay\u27s first paragraph.
How many times have you heard the statement that I am spiritual, but not religious. It is so common that it could easily qualify as a contemporary cliché. But what does it mean? In a former time to be spiritual was to be religious: they meant pretty much the same thing. Today, however, spirituality can refer to a hundred different things, from self-care to mysticism, from yoga to a psychological power of positive thinking. And the diversity of the different kinds of religion, from the recognized world religions to emergent communities, is staggering. So one cannot take for granted that we know what the self-description really means
