What Is Spiritual Bankruptcy? And How Does It Differs from Spiritual Bypassing?

Spiritual bypassing, a term introduced by psychologist John Welwood in 1984, describes the tendency to use spiritual ideas and practices to sidestep unresolved emotional wounds, personal accountability, and the demands of being in relationships.

Spiritual bankruptcy is what happens when bypassing becomes the perspective of an entire self-concept, a system so complete it no longer needs to avoid the work because it has learned to perform the work instead, to the degree that it often does not recognize it in itself.

Spiritual practice in any serious tradition makes the demand that we become more truthful as a fruit of committed practice. The sacred is meant to implicate us, arouse accountability in our perspectives, behaviour and relationships, and dissolve the performed self rather than decorate it with more trophies.