The 4th Wall

In television, the camera location is often considered the 4th wall.  Sets usually have 3 walls and the camera would be on the 4th wall.  If a character addresses the audience, he is breaking the "4th wall".

The human has four "walls" as well:  physical, mental, emotional, and spiritual.

Now, many folk only acknowledge the walls they can "see"--body, emotions, thought.  However, they are missing the vital 4th wall--the spirit.

This morning I saw a reply to an FB page that said that religion is fake, basically.  It got me thinking about how to know that the spirit of man exists.  The Holy Spirit (the One who should know) simply flashed a situation in my mind of when there were three potential reactions that were battling in my mind during a crappy situation. 

One of them was my cognitive process--my reason.  It justified my anger--any reasonable person would have been.  The next was my emotional reaction--it was MAD and wanted to jerk a knot in someone's tail.  The third was my spirit which, in a clear, calm manner, reminded me of the best course of action, which was completely against what my mind and heart wanted.  It was a dissenting voice.

Now, someone might say that that was just a memorized pattern of "living right".  However, just as someone knows the difference between an emotional reaction and a thought or a physical reaction and an emotional reaction, or between the left foot and the right foot,  this was from within me and was not an auxiliary memory or cognition.  It was not my "will" (my emotions) or my reason, but was still a part of me.  There is a huge difference between "Gah, fine.  I have been taught to be nice" vs the part of me that dissented from my normal humanity and spoke clearly.

Here is the thing...if the spirit did not exist, then religions would not exist, at least to this extent.  It is not reasonable at all that so many millions of people throughout the ages all were afflicted with some sort of mild psychosis that just so happened to occur in disparate folk in disparate areas.  Do not let the scornful or afraid convince you that this was a normal reaction to seeing the moon because it isn't.  It would require too much creativity that also happened to manifest the EXACT same way in a group of people.

Plus, religion causes the body and mind to go against instincts.  The primitive cultures thrived on the instinctual.  It saved their bodies from danger.  To develop a religion that overrode instinct that they breathed every day requires something more than creativity.  No matter how fabulous a superhero I create in my head, I am still not going to jump off a building to test if I can fly.

The facts and observations are clear that there is something besides reason, instinct (body), and emotion going on in people.  Some people turn to Christ, some to trees as in the druids, some to allah, some to The Great Spirit....whatever name they put on it, there is something playing on a part of them that is not explained by thought or delusion.

Now, if we acknowledge that there is a spiritual aspect of a person, and we must, then it is a simple question of what to do with that.  When we know we have a brain, we think and learn.  When we know we have emotions, we love and hate.  When we know we have a body, we eat and sleep.  When we know we have a spirit, we worship and pray.

Someone might say "Well what about the people who claim not to have any spiritual side?"  Honestly, if you dig deeper into their thoughts, you will often find that they mistake spiritual action for cognitive action (in fact, one might often hear them speak of "conscience" or "moral code").

Usually, though, the reason they are balking is because of the "Anything But God" effect.  You find this most in intellectuals, especially scientists.  Their loud calls and derision of "Anything but God" actually betrays them.  No one ever says "Anything But Santa!" or "Anything But the Tooth Fairy!".  No one is threatened by the idea of a tooth fairy.  Even if millions of people started "believing" in the tooth fairy, those Anything But God intellectuals would not bat an eye because they are not threatened by the idea of something they KNOW is false.

The spirit of man is the 4th wall.  Without getting mystical, it is a different part of man than heart or mind or body.  In fact, the spiritual part can cause a person to override his desires and instincts for self protection and even what seems "reasonable" (like turning the other cheek instead of raising your other fist).  It is active and grows more active with use.  It can be influenced by good or bad spiritual input, just as the mind, the body, and the emotions can be.

We would offer that it is vital for the Outlier (and everyone else) to not neglect their 4th wall.  It's presence is manifest, but easy to ignore. It is also vital not to allow oneself to be influenced by those who are acting in fear or scorn or ignorance about the facets of their own existence.