A spiritual person is connected with his spirit. To do this fully he must have access to his deepest psyche, and thus have resolved his most ancient psychic traumas. To get there he will have passed through hell, and thus will know how to help others get out of there too. If he has not resolved his traumas, however, they will block his conscious connection with his spirit, and will stunt his burgeoning spirituality. Only the fully emotionally evolved are pure and honestly spiritual; the rest are partially false, which we all are until we become fully enlightened. The world is full of pseudo-spiritual leaders, both religious and medical. They are false because they live unconsciously. They only know themselves partially. They are not deeply connected with their most profound truths. They are in denial of the rage seething in their depths, and the sorrow beneath that. But what makes them the most dangerous – primarily to those over whom they wield power – is that they can’t even admit it. Although they live a masquerade, they are so split-off that they often truly do feel happy, free, joyous, and at peace. Thus others run to follow their lead. But they only lead down blind alleys, into more denial and more untruth. They are like poison to the seeker – and they present their poison with open arms. The greatest gift of life is for a person to know himself fully. A truly spiritual person – the ideal of humanity – knows his deepest emotional truths and has full connection with his whole range of feelings, including his joy and vivacity for living as well as his pain, fear, sorrow, and even anger. He embraces it all, light and shadow, and thus his spirituality has weight and depth. His positivity is no hologram or floating cloud. He holds truth in his hands, and his eyes see.
The early members of AA were still closely connected to the Oxford Group. Bill continued to have misgivings about their evangelical leanings. He felt that this would prevent too many alcoholics from accepting the help that such a program could offer. Bill had been influenced by a physician called Dr. Silkwood who promoted the idea that alcoholism was a disease and not moral failing. The early members of AA became convinced that it was a disease that could be cured with a spiritual program. In order to make this cure available to more people it was necessary for Alcoholics Anonymous split completely away from the Oxford Group. In 1939, the group released a book called Alcoholics Anonymous: The Story of How More Than 100 Men Have Recovered from Alcoholism. This later became known as the Big Book. It has become the most successful self-help publication of all time, with over 20 million copies sold. Most of the content was written by Bill, but he did get a great deal of help from the earl...
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