Sacred Tongue
I’d like to shift gears for the moment to talk about another important part of our framing. In talking about the world or things related to spirituality, Spiritual Naturalists sometimes use phrases and terms that may sound poetic. To some, they may even seem to be referring supernatural concepts if the terms are not fully understood as we mean them. As I’ve described, our aim is to reunite the sacred with the natural. Much of the language we use hearkens back to an ancient time in which spiritual movements were founded on a universe that was seen as one natural integrated whole.
In the ancient world, understandings of the universe were not as precise as we have come to hold today, but were sometimes still correct in their substance or underlying general essence. Many of the phenomena we refer to are understood today in greater detail and often described with scientific technical language. But in personal practice we often choose to use ancient or otherwise poetic terms for these. There is an important reason for this.
First, an important point: this manner of talking about Nature should not be seen as merely poetic or 'less accurate'. Rather, language is always a human tool used to communicate. As such, its design is up to us and may vary depending on the task to be accomplished or the nature of the thing to be communicated. There are different vocabularies or lexicons used by different professions, religious traditions, and so on.
For example, it may be important to use technical scientific terminology when speaking about astronomy for purposes of research or about forces for purposes of engineering. These terms have a certain level of precision to them which is appropriate to the task at hand. As our society has become more scientific, the scientific lexicons have been considered the only way to talk about naturalistic phenomena.
But not every case in which we speak of phenomena in the natural world requires that level of specificity. In fact, overly technical language can do us a disservice if the purpose of our communication is not technical. Scientific terms were specifically (and rightfully) designed to be universal, unbiased, and dispassionate to mitigate the subjective and restrict us to the intellect.
But building a sense of the sacred involves a subjective human experience. That experience is facilitated with language and descriptions that carry with them cultural connotations. These connotations spark a host of tangent ideas, emotions, and feelings in our minds. In this kind of communication, we are attempting to convey the richness of a full sensory experience which inspires, connects, and opens our perspectives.
Here we are dealing, not only with intellect, but with other aspects of the human mind in order to induce a sense of awe, appreciation, perspective, and wonder. We want to integrate and touch those experiences which defy capture by mere language. Here, imprecision is required so as to interface with the creative and intuitive parts of our minds1.
One example of this is taking advantage of the fact that our minds evolved to help us navigate physical spaces and landscapes. This is why so much metaphorical language puts things in terms of location and movement. Consider walking “through the valley of the shadow of death” or the very notion of our practice as a path.
Another example of touching the other parts of our mind is the use of personification in ways that help us relate to a concept. Everything from sounds to colors can be the tools to help convey the feeling of having been there when we talk about profound experiences and epiphanies of wisdom. As people who are taking the subjective seriously, we need to be able to convey first-person experience more intimately than technical terms allow.
But the important point is this: the use of language in this capacity is not just some psychological gimmick. This is what I call sacred tongue2. I would propose that using sacred tongue is no less correct than using precise modern technical language to describe the natural universe. Both ways of talking about phenomena are equally legitimate, equally valid, and equally true - and I don’t just mean in terms of "my truth" or "your truth". I mean they are both true in an objective sense. Each is a language designed to communicate different kinds of concepts or traits about our world for different purposes. Technical language leaves out as much as sacred tongue - it merely leaves out different kinds of objectively true facts about the phenomena described.
This is not unlike the role of myth as identified by Joseph Campbell. As he noted, a literal, historic, or scientific interpretation of myth becomes ridiculous, as this is not its function. Campbell said in The Hero with a Thousand Faces, "When a civilization begins to reinterpret its mythology in this way, the life goes out of it, temples become museums..." The use of sacred tongue in Spiritual Naturalism is one part of an effort to reverse that process and establish a language that fosters feelings helpful in connecting a naturalistic worldview with the wisdom found throughout our history. But this will only work if we understand that it is not play-acting, but rather a very practical and different language for communicating a different set of facts, for a different purpose than science.
Also, this doesn't mean that 'anything goes'. Even in sacred tongue it is possible to tell untruths. It is still essential that our subjects refer to real phenomena we have rational cause to believe are true, and that we say true things about their effects or relationships to other phenomena and ourselves. If we point to the creative nature of self organizing complex systems and call that the Divine Fire, because the Stoics used the term to refer to the creative function in nature, that can be legitimate. We will want to make sure the conversant is ‘on our wavelength’ so to speak, to be sure they understand our usage.
But if one says that the Divine Fire gave them the power to heal the sick, then they have moved into making the kinds of objective claims that even the most poetic use of sacred tongue should give them no cover. One could even consider this a heretical abuse of sacred tongue! Heresy of this sort involves using a mode of speech that should increase communication and understanding, and instead uses it to obfuscate claims from scrutiny3. Such a person will have a lot of explaining and demonstrating to do, under controlled conditions, no matter what terms they use to describe their claims.
So, let’s look at a recap of this chapter, with a little more sacred tongue...