Holistic Spirituality

Holistic spirituality is an umbrella term encompassing a broad range of beliefs and practices that have grown in popularity in Western European countries and the United States since the counterculture movements of the 1960s. These beliefs are primarily orientated toward the attainment of wholeness, health, and the well-being of “body, mind, and spirit.” Holistic spiritualities place an emphasis on self-realization, connectivity, and personal experiences of God, the supernatural, or the sacred. They explicitly reject the Neoplatonic/Cartesian mind-body dualism identifiable within some strands of Christian and Western philosophical traditions. For these reasons, the relationship of holistic spirituality to organized religion, and particularly to wider trends in Christian spirituality since the 19th century, remains an area of considerable debate. This has led some commentators to distinguish holistic ...