Ancient Greece In
Ancient Greek medicine and
philosophy generally, the spirit (
pneuma, literally "breath") was thought to be the animating force in living creatures.
Plato considered the spirit to be one of three parts of a person's
soul. In
Stoicism, spirit is an all-pervading force frequently identified with God. The soul (
psyche) was thought to be a particular kind of
pneuma, which was present in humans and animals, but not in plants.
Christianity The Christian
New Testament uses the term
pneuma to refer to "spirit", "spiritual" and specifically to the
Holy Spirit. The relationship between the Holy Spirit in Christianity and spirit in other religions is unclear. The distinction between
psyche and
pneuma may be borrowed from the Hellenistic religions through
Hellenistic Jews such as
Philo, a view held by the so-called
History of religions school. However, others think that the Holy Spirit may actually resemble the
Stoic concept of the
anima mundi, or world soul, more than the
pneuma. According to theologian Erik Konsmo, there is no relationship between the
pneuma in Greek philosophy and the
pneuma in Christianity beyond the use of the word itself.
Latter Day Saint prophet
Joseph Smith Jr. (1805–1844) rejected the concept of spirit as incorporeal or without substance: "There is no such thing as immaterial matter. All spirit is matter, but it is more fine or pure, and can only be discerned by purer eyes." Regarding the soul, Joseph Smith wrote "And the Gods formed man from the dust of the ground, and took his spirit (that is, the man’s spirit), and put it into him; and breathed into his nostrils the breath of life, and man became a living soul." Thus, the soul is the combination of a spirit with a body (although most members of the Church use "soul" and "spirit" interchangeably). In Latter-Day Saint scripture, spirits are sometimes referred to as "intelligences". However, other LDS scriptures teach that God organized the spirits out of a pre-existing substance called "intelligence" or "the light of truth".
17th century Europe As recently as 1628 and 1633 respectively, both
William Harvey and
René Descartes still speculated that somewhere within the body, in a special locality, there was a "vital spirit" or "vital force", which animated the whole bodily frame, just as the engine in a factory moves the machinery in it.
Animism Various forms of
animism, such as Japan's
Shinto and
African traditional religion, focus on invisible beings that represent or connect with plants, animals, or
landforms (in Japanese:
kami); translators usually employ the English word "spirit" when trying to express the idea of such entities.
Chinese culture The traditional
Chinese concept of
qi is a kind of
vital force forming part of any living being. The exact meaning of the term morphed over the course of the development of
Chinese philosophy. The literal meaning of the
Chinese language term
qi (), like many analogous concepts in other cultures, derives from the word for "breath";
Gods, especially
anthropromorphic gods, are sometimes thought to have
qi and be a reflection of the
microcosm of qi in humans. Qi also was in natural forces, where it could be controlled by gods and harnessed by
magicians.
Psychical research Psychical research, "In all the publications of the
Society for Psychical Research the term 'spirit' stands for
the personal stream of consciousness whatever else it may ultimately be proved to imply or require." (
James H. Hyslop, 1919) == Death ==