Understanding Spiritual Blindness
Biblical Concepts of Blindness
One of the recurrent motifs in the Bible is the theme of “spiritual blindness.” The words of Jesus Christ repeatedly address the blindness of the people surrounding him.
Jesus is frequently depicted, in the Bible, healing people of their blindness, which can sometimes even be an innate condition. For instance, in Mark 8:22-6, the gospel describes Jesus healing a blind man in the village of Bethsaida, in the northern shore of the Sea of Galilee. In John 9:1-12, the gospel describes Jesus healing a man who was blind from birth.
Other verses in the Bible proclaim the recovery of sight from blindness as a key accomplishment and, indeed, one of the primary objectives of Christ’s ministry:
“And Jesus said, ‘For judgment I have come into the world, that those who do not see may see, and that those who see may be made blind.’”
(John 9:39, NKJV)
and:
“Jesus answered and said to them, ‘Go and tell John the things you have seen and heard: that the blind see, the lame walk, the lepers are cleansed, the deaf hear, the dead are raised, the poor have the gospel preached to them.’”
(Luke 7:22, NKJV)
Apart from these, there are occasions in the New Testament where Jesus speaks of blindness in accusatory terms – as if it were a spiritual or psychological flaw rather than a physiological ailment. It appears that Jesus is speaking metaphorically when he says:
“They are blind leaders of the blind. And if the blind leads the blind, both will fall into a ditch.”
(Matthew 15:14, NKJV)
and:
“Blind guides, who strain out a gnat and swallow a camel!”
(Matthew 23:24, NKJV)
The apostle Paul also comments on this condition of spiritual blindness in his letter to the Ephesians:
“… having their understanding darkened, being alienated from the life of God, because of the ignorance that is in them, because of the blindness of their heart…”
(Ephesians 4:18, NKJV)
This condition of spiritual/psychological blindness, as described repeatedly in the Bible, is easy to recognize and intuitively grasp when we see it. It is hard to pinpoint exactly what it is, though, even when we see it manifested in the world to this day – in the corruption and hypocrisy of the global religious and political elite; in the frequently irreligious, even sacrilegious, dictates of religious fundamentalists; in the bombastic self-promotion of supposed religious figures; in the insane enmity and conflict between religious, ethnic, linguistic and tribal factions; in the prevalent decline of standards and values in popular culture, and in the frequently overblown, insincere rhetoric of orators and intellectuals of various stripes.
The Nature of Spiritual Blindness
Is it possible to arrive at a deeper, clearer understanding of what Jesus was referring to, beyond the intuitive understanding that is often tied to so much cultural baggage that it can obscure its deeper meaning?
I believe it is.
My earlier blog posts discussing words and language – The Tyranny of Words, The Space Between Words, Beyond Words and The Hypnosis of Words – delve into how language can shape, even determine, the course of our thoughts and beliefs.
To recap, I pointed out that words are labels that we attempt to use, in effect, to simplify and control our perception of reality. Words, language and, ultimately, the narratives that we construct out of them, create a perceptual filter around the brain. Without this filter, human beings would experience overwhelming sensory overload, similar to the kind of overwhelm we often experience when perusing online social media.
Words, language and narratives function as an operating system and perceptual gateway in the brain – focusing our attention in some respects, while dismissing and ignoring other perceptual stimuli. This phenomenon is not merely an expression of confirmation bias. Words, language and narratives are demonstrably, literally hypnotic in nature. They can focus and color one’s perception of reality, even influencing our perception of color and sound. Hypnosis is, essentially, a word or phrase deeply embedded in the subconscious psyche, where it operates with the authority of an undeniable command or dictate, controlling and directing human perceptions and behavior.
I believe that the Bible is referring to this phenomenon when it describes “spiritual blindness.” It points to how words, language and narratives – which may take the form of doctrines, dogmas, mythologies, media reports, or even scientific treatises and theorems – can embed themselves in the human psyche so as to control, shape and manipulate one’s perception of reality. This may sometimes manifest as deliberate indoctrination – as in the case of religious fundamentalism, cult brainwashing or the dissemination of political ideologies. More often than not, though, it is simply the product of one’s cultural milieu and of prevailing norms and prejudices, as they shape and direct one’s thinking through peer pressure and the herd instinct.
When Jesus called out the spiritual blindness of the theocratic religious leaders of his time, he was evidently referring to their doctrinal fundamentalism to the exclusion of basic humanity and even common sense. This is, I submit, an extreme manifestation of how the human mind can be shaped by narratives – sometimes to such a degree that it can override basic human empathy, compassion and humanity, turning the human individual into a closed-minded hypocritical bigot.
Healing Spiritual Blindness
If this is an accurate diagnosis of the condition, one may ask, “how can I be cured of ‘spiritual blindness?’” I suggest that one of the most effective techniques to overcome spiritual blindness is expanding one’s consciousness through meditation techniques (such as Transcendental Meditation), or through relaxation and energetic techniques like Qigong and Yoga (cf. my blog post Stress and Life).
Eastern mystical traditions often speak of the third eye, which refers to expanded consciousness and vision. It is frequently connected with the pineal gland – the tiny pine-shaped endocrine gland situated in the center of the brain, between the cerebral hemispheres. Meditation techniques, together with healthful strategies to detoxify the body from contaminants, can play an instrumental role in expanding one’s consciousness and enhancing one’s spiritual vision. Toxic contaminants in the modern urban diet and water supply – like fluoride and other halogens, glyphosate, mercury, lead, aluminum, as well as traces of many other hazardous impurities – are often instrumental in shutting down human intuitive abilities and dampening human spiritual awareness.
Stress is another factor that narrows one’s vision and contributes to “spiritual blindness” over time. Stress is a physiological survival response to life-threatening conditions. However, when the stress response is artificially triggered by media sensationalism, for example, or by unscrupulous politicians engaging in fear-mongering, or even by the everyday circumstances of urban life, it can push one into states of artificially induced chronic stress. This can, over time, narrow and limit one’s spiritual vision, leading, ultimately, to “spiritual blindness.”
Learning stress-relieving relaxation techniques is, thus, a powerful organic means of expanding consciousness and healing spiritual blindness, even going so far as to remedy limitations experienced in one’s physiological sense of sight.
The Significance of Spiritual Vision
The urban lifestyle can facilitate circumstances wherein narratives, often transmitted by the media, can conspire with stress-inducing conditions and poor lifestyle choices (involving quality of food, water, air, sunlight exposure, etc.) to induce a condition of widespread spiritual blindness among the public. This can place the populace at the mercy of unscrupulous politicians, corporate and financial moguls, and religious leaders, who can exploit this widespread spiritual blindness by sowing the seeds of divisiveness, hostility, conflict and war, along religious, ethnic and cultural lines of division.
When we take active, deliberate measures to overcome spiritual blindness, we are able to protect ourselves from being exploited and our lives being destroyed by those with the ability and inclination to do so. An individual with a deep spiritual insight and vision is a formidable opponent and deterrent to the exploitative factions in our society.
One thought