By Adam J. Pearson

I’ve been contemplating the Spirit Model / Psychological Model of Magic dichotomy recently from a totally different perspective, namely, that of Advaita Vedanta, a Hindu mystical school of nonduality. To spice up this old discussion in which I’ve previously tended towards the Spirit Model and against the Psychological Model, I thought I would share these reflections on which I’d love to hear your thoughts, friends.

From Advaita’s point of view, at least as exemplified by the teachings of the great sage Ramana Maharshi, both the Spirit Model and the Psychological Model are equally false. From the Advaita perspective, nothing separate exists, period.

Both the Spirit Model and Psychological Model assume that what we fundamentally are is a separate human being in relation to which we can either speak about there being separate spirits (Spirit Model) or interpret the spirits as aspects of that separate human being’s…