religiosity as a too-tight womb

In the previous distinction between religiosity and spirituality, a move is made beyond a focus on the fundamentalist mindset found within all religions to include rigid thought structures found within all human consciousness states. In other words, religiosity can be found in both religious and secular realms.

Religiosity is an initial stage in the development of human consciousness. We are born with a "pure" consciousness state, "trailing clouds of glory" as Wordsworth puts it. We learn quickly to adopt a thought structure either similar to or in reaction against the prevailing thought community into which we are born. This thought structure tends to harden. We make it our profession to see the world as this way and no other way. We become professors of our thought structure, missionaries of our mind. We become hedgehogs.

In alchemical language (alchemy was a precursor to "modern" chemistry and can be seen as rich in symbology of the human psyche), at that stage of consciousness we are dragons. Dragon refers to the psyche of a person abiding in an external world. The purpose of psychological alchemy is to allow the dragon to transform.

Many of us humans are still in the embryonic stages of consciousness, by whatever animal name or metaphor. Many others are opening beyond religiosity to spirituality, to awareness of cosmic citizenry. This requires being born out of our borne-ness, to open to the unborn, to be willing to go out of our minds.

The alternative is to remain stillborn.