Spiritual bypassing is a very persistent shadow of spirituality, manifesting in many forms, often without being acknowledged.
– R. Augustus
What comes to mind when you think of ‘spirituality’?
You might picture beautiful temples, ethereal instruments, golden Buddhas, gardens and forests of paradise, the faces of enlightened masters, angels, mountain ranges, sunsets, or any number of other dazzling images.
We tend to associate spiritual awakening with transcendental and heightened states of being that are invariably associated with feelings of happiness, joy, deep inner peace, and contentment.
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While all of this is true and wonderful, many of us become intoxicated, distracted, and ensnared by these highly attractive images of spirituality, avoiding the darker, painful, and more demanding sides of such a path.
At its core, spiritual bypassing is like any other form of avoidance that rewards us with a false feeling of security and happiness, while undermining the deeper path of spiritual integration, transformation, and Oneness.
Table of contents
Spiritual Bypassing: An Enticing Form of Escapism
What you resist, persists.
– C. G. Jung
For a long time, I struggled with understanding what ‘true’ spirituality looked and felt like.
I would look in the newspapers and find ads from kooky-looking psychic women promoting their services, all the way to alluring internet courses dedicated to “ascending to the 5D.”
I would read new age books about “optimism” and esoteric articles about casting spells to attract love and prosperity. I’d devour videos and purchase materials on the latest spiritual techniques or newly discovered “ancient practices” purported to “change my life.”
But amidst all of this searching, I somehow never felt a connection with any of these findings. All of these ideas and practices somehow felt amiss: something, somehow, seemed intuitively off-center and “wrong” about them.
I’ve finally discovered why I’ve always felt this way about so many spiritual practices in the past few years. All of these practices had felt so “off” to me because many of them, instead of being authentically spiritual, were actually forms of spiritual bypassing.
The term ‘spiritual bypassing’ was originally coined by psychologist John Welwood in 1984. As he explained in an interview,
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Spiritual bypassing is a term I coined to describe a process I saw happening in the Buddhist community I was in, and also in myself. Although most of us were sincerely trying to work on ourselves, I noticed a widespread tendency to use spiritual ideas and practices to sidestep or avoid facing unresolved emotional issues, psychological wounds, and unfinished developmental tasks.
As we can see, spiritual bypassing is largely about avoiding or trying to escape from the more tricky parts of life. This understanding leads us to form a clear definition of spiritual bypassing:
What is Spiritual Bypassing? (Definition)
To spiritually bypass is to use spirituality to avoid, suppress, or escape from uncomfortable issues or areas within life.
These issues could be the loss of a loved one, a relationship breakup, family problems, childhood abuse, loneliness, low self-esteem, self-sabotaging behaviors, fear, mental or emotional health issues, or any other problems life presents.
Examples of areas that can be bypassed include avoiding psychological healing of unhealthy attachment styles, environmental issues, topics of inequality (class, race, gender, sexuality, etc.), and so on.
To many people, spirituality becomes a sort of crutch used to help them stand back up again in the face of life’s turmoil – and often, this is necessary. We all need support at one time or another in our lives.
However, the problem comes when spirituality is used as a drug on which we become dependent to bypass the darker or more complex elements of our lives.
When spirituality is used as a defense mechanism to ward off the gremlins and demons of our existence, it actually becomes our greatest hindrance, preventing us from developing true courage, authenticity, and compassion; qualities that refine our souls.
While the use of spirituality can provide us with a solid wall to hide behind, in doing so it traps us in an all-is-blissful-and-perfect jail cell of illusions.
Further reading: 11 Warning Signs You’re Practicing Spiritual Materialism »
10 Types of Spiritual Bypassing
What gives light must endure burning.
– V. Frankl (Man’s Search For Meaning)
The reality is that not everything in life is ‘love and light,’ as is the slogan for many spiritual seekers.
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Pursuing the Light and living an enlightened and deeply interconnected existence is also about setting yourself on fire.
True spirituality is about creating an inferno of your false beliefs, illusions, desires, ideals, and prejudices. It’s about surrendering to the destruction of every limiting thing you ever thought and felt about yourself, other people, and the world, aka. ego death.
Spirituality is not always pretty. In fact, often, it’s the most shattering, tumultuous, and testing experience we can go through in life.
But only once we emerge from the embers of our destruction can we be reborn – like phoenixes – into new lives of clarity and peace.
The truth is that there are many types of spiritual bypassing that we sometimes don’t recognize (or refuse to recognize) in life. I have listed ten of the most common types below:
I) The Optimistic Bypass
We’ve all come across people in life who love to laugh and smile, yet seem to be forcefully optimistic. “Focus on the positive!” “See the glass as half full!” “Don’t let a frown get you down!” are some of the catchcries of these people who tend to use optimism as a way of avoiding the more sinister and troublesome realities of life. The optimistic bypass is often a side product of anger-phobia or else the inability to deal with negative emotions as a whole.
II) The Aggrandizement Bypass
The aggrandizement bypass is adopted by those who seek to feel enlightened, superior, or somehow “more awakened” in their spiritual development than others. Claiming to have reached a certain spiritual coveted milestone is a type of self-delusion that some spiritual seekers use as a way of masking their perceived deficiencies and insecurities (learn more about ‘Makyo‘). More commonly, this bypass is typically used by self-proclaimed masters, spiritual leaders, “kundalini awakened” yogis, and gurus to solicit a following (and make some good money!).
III) The Victim Bypass
When one becomes a victim of their gifts, or of other people, this takes away the pressure of responsibility for shaping a satisfying life and taking responsibility for one’s happiness – such is the case with the Victim Bypass. This type of spiritual bypass is often used by spiritual seekers who believe they have extrasensory gifts of some kind, but due to their gifts, they are unable to feel happy or healthy.
Identifying as an empath, for example, is sometimes a good example of this type of bypassing. As being an empath is a gift that’s all about sensing others’ emotions, this can be used as an excuse to behave in self-pitying, self-destructive, and volatile ways.
Other labels, like being a clairvoyant, an indigo child, a starseed, gifted healer, and so on, can often cause people to fall into the Victim Bypass trap.
IV) The Psychonaut Bypass
Many spiritual seekers explore the frontiers of the mind, the soul, and reality through the use of psychedelic drugs such as LSD, DMT, psilocybin mushrooms, mescaline, and other entheogens that expand consciousness. While psychoactive substances are a fascinating way of exploring reality, like any other drug, they can often be used to escape daily life and avoid committing to personal development and Soul Work.
V) The Horoscope Bypass
When we frequently look outside of ourselves for help and guidance, as in the case with horoscopes and psychics, we’re failing to tap into our inner wellsprings of wisdom and strength and are allowing external predictions to control the outcome of our lives. The Horoscope Bypass is typically derived from fear and mistrust of ourselves, fear of taking self-responsibility for our decisions, and resistance to flowing with life by trying to predict “what’s going to happen.”
VI) The Saint Bypass
As children, many of us were conditioned to believe that a “spiritual person” is always kind, compassionate, and saintly. In adulthood, many of us continue to repeat this story to ourselves, and sadly, it can create tremendous suffering.
The Saint Bypass is a reflection of extreme “black or white” thinking, promoting the underlying belief that spiritual people can’t have dark sides because that would make them “unspiritual.” This type of spiritual bypass is essentially avoidance of one’s Shadow Self (dark side) by overcompensating with the guise of a sweet and heavenly exterior. The martyr complex is a major symptom of this type of bypassing.
VII) The Spirit Guide Bypass
In some spiritual traditions, it’s a God who protects, in others, it’s an angel, animal, or an ascended being who takes care of us.
While at certain points in life it’s helpful, soothing, and supportive to feel ourselves taken care of by a spirit guide, we can’t let it become too much of a crutch.
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Relying 100% on our spirit guide/s to give us all of our insight, all of our protection, and all our spiritual sustenance keeps us in a spiritually infantile state. In other words, we fail to develop strength of spiritual character.
Spirit guides serve to teach us rather than to babysit us.
VIII) The Prayer Bypass
Similar to the Spirit Guide Bypass, the Prayer Bypass circumvents personal responsibility by putting faith in a higher being to solve all of our problems and issues. While praying can be a healthy practice, it can easily become limiting and misguided. Sinking too much into passivity is an imbalanced way to live life and can easily lead to disaster. We must learn to take action and trust our own instincts as well.
IX) The Guru Bypass
Often it is beneficial to follow a guru, shaman, or spiritual teacher to learn and grow. However, becoming too attached to such people can rapidly turn into another form of spiritual bypassing.
The temptation to begin worshiping (knowingly or unknowingly) spiritual teachers means that we eventually forget the purpose of listening to them, i.e., to integrate the essence of their teachings.
By treating the words of a guru or master as the irrefutable truth and failing to think for ourselves, we fall into cult-like groupthink, and we’re starved of true spiritual growth and transformation on our spiritual journeys.
X) The Finger-Pointing Bypass
At some point on our spiritual quests, we begin to see through the lies, delusions, and crazy behaviors committed by our fellow human beings and this can make us angry, downhearted, and frustrated.
However, when we get caught up in “everything that is wrong” with the outside world and other people, dedicating our lives to the self-righteous quest of finger-pointing, this can be another form of spiritual bypassing.
Finger-pointing instills us with a false sense of righteousness, taking away the responsibility of looking inside and working on ourselves.
At its roots, the Finger-Pointing bypass is sourced in egocentric separation and fearful avoidance of our own shadows.
***
I’m sure there are many other forms of spiritual bypassing out there. But, at the very least, the above ten forms are the most common bypasses that we can easily observe around and within us.
How to Stop Spiritual Bypassing
Without deep and honest self-acceptance, the spiritual life rests on a dangerous psychological foundation and is nothing more than escape into a world of illusion. Humble self-knowledge is the most basic condition for any true spirituality.
– John Monbourquette
The spiritual bypass is slippery, conniving, and is often disguised in robes of light.
It can take a lot of ruthless self-honesty – or what is known as spiritual discernment – to see through the lies we’ve been conditioned to believe or have told ourselves. But, rest assured, favoring the truth will help us greatly in the longterm.
So how do we stop spiritual bypassing? Here are some methods you might like to use:
1. Cultivate an open-minded attitude
Before uncovering any forms of spiritual bypassing that have wheedled their way into your life, you need to be open. You need to be willing to be wrong, misguided, or totally off the mark. Without that willingness to be open-minded, you’ll be fooling yourself. There will be no point in even trying to call yourself out because you’ll be shooting yourself in the foot before even beginning!
Therefore, strive to cultivate an open-minded attitude of humility. Remind yourself that it’s okay to be imperfect (we all are!). Most spiritual seekers – in fact, I’d dare say ALL seekers – go wrong at some point. And that’s nothing to be ashamed of. Embrace your flawed humanity and take steps toward greater spiritual expansion.
2. Examine the light and dark side of what you do
There’s a light and dark side to everything. Even if you struggle to find out what’s wrong with the spiritual activities or commitments you’re dedicated to right now, create hypothetical scenarios.
For example, if you follow a spiritual teacher that you love and adore, create a hypothetical scenario where that teacher betrays your trust or does something against your ethics. What then?
Ask yourself questions such as:
- “What could go wrong here?”
- “What aren’t I seeing?”
- “What’s the other side of this?”
- “In the past, how has this hurt someone?”
- “What warnings do people give about this activity?”
- “Is this hurting me in some way?”
- “Is this harming others in some way?”
- “How is this making me weak or dependant?”
- “Is there an opportunity for me to be taken advantage of here?”
Listening to your doubt is intelligent. Blind faith creates sheep, not a self-sovereign wolf. Dare to look at both sides of life. Honor the yin and yang of existence. Embrace the energy of both Shiva (the destroyer) and Shakti (the creator) within you.
Read more: 11 Traps Sabotaging Your Spiritual Growth »
3. Dare to face your cognitive dissonance
Cognitive dissonance (CD) is a state of being where a person’s beliefs and behaviors don’t align.
CD generally happens to people who hold two contradictory beliefs and have a sophisticated spiritual ego. The result of CD is a sense of underlying uneasiness, anxiety, guilt, and like “something isn’t quite right.”
Those who carry a lot of cognitive dissonance tend to “explain away” their behavior (or that of others) and live in denial. Facing the truth is too painful, so reality is avoided, and a false reality is created instead.
CD often happens to members of cults, but can also occur in the general spiritual community. For example, a person might experience CD when they follow the principle of non-harming (Ahisma) but hit their children every time they get angry.
Other examples of CD include following a narcissistic spiritual teacher who says one thing and does the other, claiming to be a healer with special abilities but on some level knowing that it’s a pretense (and placebo), following a non-dual philosophy but being dogmatic about it, and so on.
Facing CD involves doing shadow work and examining places and behaviors in your life that don’t add up. This practice isn’t about shaming yourself or being “more perfect,” but being honest and clearing away any self-delusion.
4. Ask others for their honest opinions
If you have any close friends or family members (who you have a healthy and respectful relationship with), talk to them about your spiritual path. Ask them if they have noticed any spiritual bypassing tendencies within you. If they don’t understand what spirtual bypassing is, show them this article or explain it to them!
Then, once your trusted friend or family member is ready, consciously brace yourself (and your ego) by taking a slow, soft, deep breath for their response. If at any point you feel overwhelmed with an emotion like anger or defensiveness, thank them and tell them that you need a minute or two to process what they’ve told you.
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$3Feedback from other people (who genuinely care about our wellbeing) is invaluable. But make sure it’s from people you trust. Don’t go asking someone you have a complicated connection with to divulge your spiritual bypassing tendencies. Likely, they’ll use it as an opportunity to hurt you in a backhanded way.
If you don’t have anyone you trust, you could try a trained spiritual counselor who’s familiar with spiritual bypassing or even an online group of kindred spirits whom you trust.
5. Face and feel your pain
Why does spiritual bypassing occur? The answer is that it helps us to avoid facing painful emotions such as grief, shame, rage, hatred, and terror.
Everyone wants to enjoy a sparkly spiritual high (that is ultimately short-lived) but no one wants to do the hard work of facing inner pain (that actually leads to longlasting joy, fulfillment, and peace).
Facing and feeling your pain is not simple. You’ll most likely require the help of a spiritual counselor or therapist – and ideally, they will be trauma-informed, as repressed pain stems from unresolved trauma.
Facing one’s pain is not a fun prospect for most people, hence why they avoid this work and keep using their spiritual bandaids. But the fact still remains: the pain needs to be dealt with sooner or later.
Practices that can help you face and feel your pain might include breathwork, bodywork (like yoga), spiritual meditation, mindfulness, keeping a journal, art therapy, expressive dancing, catharsis, inner child work, and many other creative or embodied practices.
Final Words
Spiritual bypassing is a topic that I believe every book, course, website, teacher, and guru should incorporate into their methodology, without exception.
To think that spirituality is without its dark side is not only totally naive, but unequivocably dangerous. We absolutely need to practice spiritual discernment and recognize where we might be wrong or misaligned – and to do that, we need to face our pain and shadows.
In the words of psychologist and author Elaine N. Aron:
Real redemption or enlightenment, as much as it can be achieved in this world, comes through hard work that does not skirt tough personal issues.
It can be a deeply unsettling, even terrifying experience to tear down the veneer of illusion from our lives and stare into the face of truth.
But the spiritual path is a process of destruction and purification; it requires you to set afire all hidden illusions and falsities so that you can experience the liberating joy of awakening to your True Nature.
Tell me, what has your experience been like with spiritual bypassing? I’d love to hear any thoughts, feelings, or stories you have below.
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I don’t know what’s worse – a spiritual bypass or a coronary bypass.. More and more people are needing coronary bypasses thesedays because of all the CORROSIVE sodium chloride in their bloodstream. It shears the artery walls, causing a substance referred to as ‘cholesterol’ to build up inside of them, which is the body’s own means of trying to repair the damage. Erm… No… hang on a minute… I got that wrong… The build up of cholesterol is caused by eating too many coconuts lol.
No wonder the entire food chain worldwide is saturated in toxic sodium chloride (otherwise known as ‘salt’). Care for a packet of crisps, anyone..?
Fair to say bypassing will inevitably lead to an increased density of one’s shadow?
Yes, absolutely Robert. The two go hand in hand.
This first question is interesting. “What comes to mind when you think of “spirituality”?”
It’s interesting because spirituality has nothing to do with mind.
Shadow work and all other dark work that we have to do in order to awake from the dream of self-illusions and spiritual bypassing are neccessary but all that will bring even more troubles or even mental illness if it’s done on mind level.
Avoiding to face our dark side is bypassing but trying to face it and “work” on it means that awakening is in the future, that we have to deserve it, that it’s not our natural state.
That means that we need more time, to work with this or that and then we can step out to world of spirituality and be awaken.
That means that we go away from present moment and give ourselves time, we are not here, but in the future or past (both are just mind constructed patterns, forms)
Nothing exist except present moment and the most common and dangerous bypassing is searching for answers out of presence.
Facing dark sides and shadow work …yes, but only in present moment, only when darkness appears in presence, not as mind-made future “task” or “work” that we need to do.
Thanks for your input Marinela. Yes, I agree: shadow work is very much a present moment task. But not everyone is at the stage where they can do that, so there must be time and space designated to shadow work, particularly for those first starting it and those not used to practicing presence. Ultimately, however, shadow work needs to be a present moment practice, as it brings us into the past or future and too much in the mind. But there is a starting place for everyone.
Very insightful essay. I think I have been though all of them at one time or another but at this point I think I can face the dark side of my life and self and be OK. That was not always so. Rumi said – The wound is where the light goes in. I have embraced that and my wounds and have been allowing them to teach me. I no longer look for gurus or knights in shining armor or a spiritual fix. I do pray, I walk in beauty and embrace my fears and doubts. Being in nature is very healing and I connect with nature often as a friend and medicine. I also walk in my shadows and they sometimes are very strong. I have to love them too, they are part off me and my life experience. I am not as hard on myself as I used to be though I have high standards of personal behavior. Life is a process and a journey, sometimes the road is crooked and rocky, that is OK with me.
Dano, you seem to be coming along quite fine. Good on you :)
Thank you for this, Aletheia. I am conscious of cognitive dissonance as a recurring element in my own life, from absorbing apparently contradictory information and reconciling it in my head as a child (actually, in that form it has turned out on the whole to be of a positive nature in the long run, with one significant and ongoing exception) to struggling with the gap between fantasy and reality in my repeated tendency to idolatry I my attitudes towards other living humans, friends and mentors (also a mark of spiritual bypassing) or with the ongoing gap between my best efforts and my actual goals and values.
Thanks for your honesty, Alexander. And you certainly aren’t alone! Being raised in certain restrictive environments messes with the clarity of our third eye and crown chakras (the ability to see clearly and trust in our own wisdom). But the first step is awareness of this issue, and you seem to be quite self-aware. :)
In truth I do not think that either my external environment, my parents, teachers and other mentors could really be described as restrictive, though this is probably at least a factor for many. There have been experiences in my life that have profoundly shaped me for better and for worse (for it is usually both) but I think some things go back further or are somehow aspects of my nature. Also many traits are not so much either virtues, vices or morally neutral as potentials capable of becoming either, if that makes any sense. There are also what I sometimes refer to as my mutually exclusive desires. I am also uncertain what role if any my Asperger’s Syndrome (a form of high functioning autism; it is my original diagnosis, but I believe that DSM5 in America now classes it as just part of Autism Spectrum Disorder, a sore point with some) may play in all this. Thank you for your kind words.
Very interesting article. There was a time when things were simple and we knew what we had to do to ‘redeem our spirit’. It involved submitting one’s faith to God through the established church and, put simply, praying. Now, as with the move towards personal autonomy – our God is now ‘choice’ – we strive to find our ‘own way’. My experience is that it has left people everywhere with a deep sense of uncertainty – even anxiety – about what they are looking for, what they need to do to get it and how they’ll know when they’ve finally got it (enlightenment – now just what is that exactly?) if they ever do. And ‘what they need to do to get it’ includes dealing with the hazards and false prophets – internal as well as external – along the way which is where your article comes in. The only problem is that – IMHO again – people become rather possessive about their spiritual approach and are reluctant to let anyone question it. So it will be useful to have some third-party text to refer them to when I get to that point in the discussion when I’m convinced that they are on one of the bypasses but they just can’t see it.
It’s tricky knowing if you’re on the ‘right’ path or not – ie no bypassing – when a significant part of the evidence is uncomfortable and challenging and often seems to contradict accepted ‘sensible’ behaviour. Good luck to everyone else on it!
Thank you for sharing your thoughts here, David. You highlight something interesting about people being possessive about their spiritual approach, and what underpins that. We are desperately seeking for something to hold onto as a species. Most people seem to be growing out of religion and toward deeper, more experiential, and direct experiences with the divine. It’s no wonder that, with all this confusion and disintegration, we will cling to our spiritual views and tools ferociously. It’s totally understandable – and not everyone is at a place where they can let go of that, which is fine. It’s what their soul needs. For those who have an insatiable thirst for truth, though, we’ve got to do the work of our inner Shiva, and be the destroyer of our own worlds (temporarily). That said, it’s much easier to get help from a trusted spiritual guide who has knowledge and integrity in this area. It’s so easy to fool ourselves – the ego has endless machinations (that are, in all truth, simply trying to protect us). In fact, a teacher or third party at some point who can point these things out is vital in my opinion. Nevertheless, this article is a good place to start. The hardest work, in my experience, is the work of the soul: the work that brings us ever closer to the truth of who we really are.
In high school, and now sometimes, my brother would remind me of the times when I lean on astrology to find out more about myself. Reading this article, I realized that he might have a point in that department. Thank you for writing this article and sending it to people who need to read it.
Fellow Wolf, Sam
Thank you for sharing your honest self-reflections here, Sam. It’s an honor to help. <3
This was a great article. I come from a religious background and this resonated completly with my past experiences. I guess the louder and more intense the speaker is- the higher the chance is of spirituality bypassing. Thank you for putting my thoughts and reflections into words!
Yes, so well said Bridget. Generally those who are overly loud and pushy about their beliefs are so because they believe their way is the “only” truth or “only” way. This black and white mindset leads to a lot of self-deception and cognitive dissonance – it’s unfathomable being wrong let alone humiliated in public about it. Ah, our human egos are so fragile. So such loud and overly confident people refuse to see any other perspective and spirituality is used as a way to reinforce their false sense of rightness and spiritual superiority.
From my experience with Spirit and being on the path of connection and beingness of Spirit, I have found that spiritual bypassing is a part of one’s soul path and spiritual journey. I like what David Joshua Stone calls spiritual bypassing: spiritual traps and I have bypassed and been trapped while working on my relationship as and with Spirit. Your teaching here is very good and I can attest to the validity of the vagaries of spiritual bypassing.
I appreciate this perspective: that spiritual bypassing is part of our souls’s path. It takes away the shame and frustration that we feel and replaces it with compassion; realising that we’re doing the best we can at every moment in our lives and our soul’s evolution. Thank you for sharing this, John. :)
I have realized that everyone is exactly where they need to be so when I encounter another person, I know they are where they are at for a reason on their soul path. For example, they may be unconscious or experiencing some kind of spiritual bypassing and it is where they need to be and I relate to them with this perspective. They are where they are at for their own reason.
When suppressed issues happen, usually from past hurts, angers, sadness,abuse, etc.. The initial stage is to REACT…to kill the pain, the sorrow and the loss, by any means possible. Drugs, alcohol, lies, avoidance of the light side, with as you say self loathing, and self destructive behaviours, which for a short time at least kill the inner confusion and pain, or completely bi pass it for a time until reality re surfaces.
So yes we all do various levels of bi passing.
As who wants to look revisit the mess!
Most of us just want some semblance of normality on the margins of so called reality (this life). To mend to the best of our abilities the roadblocks given, to find acceptance of the load and the pains we carry and move on, as life waits for no body!
One not given is the Imagination bi passing. When the outer world is too difficult and to handle, then the imagination takes precedence curling inwards on many extreme journeys of escape , with the usual delusions that the early ego mind exhibits.
So most of life can be experienced with a personal touch that does not inhibit or flood the system. This of course makes great thinkers and artists but can cause it’s own problems later in life if the imagination is no longer the great bi pass, but just another problem to solve.
Hi John, I agree, so many of us are just trying to get by; to deal with the mess and chaos of everyday life. Spiritual bypassing is much like our psychological defense mechanisms: it can help protect us from feeling *too* much or facing the *undiluted* truth before we’re ready to handle it. So in that sense, it is necessary. It has a positive function – up until a certain point (just like our defense mechanisms stop us from becoming psychotic or catatonic). But there comes a time when we are strong enough to feel it all and face the truth – I hope those coming to this article who recognize themselves in these behaviors realize that they were necessary at the time. They help us cope. So there need be no shame or beating ourselves up. But for those who feel called to strip away the illusions, I hope this article gives a big boost of support. It’s not easy, but it is so, deeply, unfathomably worth it.