'Spiritual'may refer to:
- Spiritual (music), an African American song, usually with a Christian religious text
- Lords Spiritual, clergymen of the established Church of England who serve in the House of Lords
- Spiritual possession, a concept of many religions, where it is believed that a demon may take temporary control of a human body
- Spirituality, a concern with matters of the spirit
- Supernatural, refers to forces and phenomena which are beyond ordinary scientific understanding
- A branch of the 13th-century Franciscans espousing poverty as obligatory.
Famous quotes containing the word spiritual:
“The true thrift is always to spend on the higher plane; to invest and invest, with keener avarice, that he may spend in spiritual creation, and not in augmenting animal existence. Nor is the man enriched, in repeating the old experiments of animal sensation; nor unless through new powers and ascending pleasures he knows himself by the actual experience of higher good to be already on the way to the highest.”
—Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803–1882)
“Audible prayer can never do the works of spiritual understanding, which regenerates; but silent prayer, watchfulness, and devout obedience enable us to follow Jesus’ example. Long prayers, superstition, and creeds clip the strong pinions of love, and clothe religion in human forms. Whatever materializes worship hinders man’s spiritual growth and keeps him from demonstrating his power over error.”
—Mary Baker Eddy (1821–1910)
“It is possible that the contemplation of cruelty will not make us humane but cruel; that the reiteration of the badness of our spiritual condition will make us consent to it.”
—Lionel Trilling (1905–1975)