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Abstract

ered the law of attraction or the power of the present moment? What people really mean to say is that they finally understand through their experiences a certain piece of wisdom. They’ve suddenly felt the lightbulb of illumination — a moment where body, emotion, and mind all resonate and you say to yourself, I finally get this.But if that’s the case, then don’t present these ideas as if they were your creation. Instead, cite some sources or present them as common spiritual knowledge, and make clear what new insight about them you are bringing to the table. Find a way to offer an original take on spiritual wisdom, perhaps by showing how your life benefited from it.<h1 id="4573">Soft Plagiarism</h1>Sometimes work on this platform borders quite closely on plagiarism. I’m sure that outright plagiarism exists on Medium, and no one claiming to be on a spiritual path can justify ripping off someone else’s words.What I’m talking about is soft plagiarism. It’s the plagiarism of the undergraduate student who thinks that paraphrasing everything means you don’t have to cite anything. Sure, you’ve changed some words around, but the ideas belonged to someone else. I’ve read countless articles on universal laws, chakras, or tarot cards that happen to track with uncanny precision the language of other articles on the internet, so much so that a simple Google search turns up countless sites that could easily pass as source material.If that’s the case, it’s fairly safe to assume that either (a) the wisdom being passed off as original is now commonplace in the spiritual world, or (b) you copied or derived your work from another source. If the former, you need to acknowledge that your work is not original (and think about whether your article offers anything new to the reader before publishing), and if the latter, then you need to cite your source(s).One interpretation is that writers are lazy or lacking in integrity but committed to churning out articles to build their brand and earn money. A more charitable approach is to assume that they’re excited by what they’re learning and want to share it with others. Yet another interpretation is that these trends in writing are rooted in a rejection of all expertise — no need to listen to gurus or fellow writers. None of these reasons justifies copying or regurgitating existing spiritual works.The third interpretation deserves a bit more attention. The tenet “the divine is inside” has now been taken up to mean that you have all the answers already, so everything you say is original to you, and therefore, you need not acknowledge that anybody else has ever written on this topic before. Ironically, the very idea that “the divine is inside” is not an original thought — this idea has been circulating widely for some time.Maybe you have all the answers you need right now for your life, but that doesn’t authorize you to regurgitate other writers’ works as if your own. Besides, why bother to write anything if everybody already has all the answers they need inside of them?<h1 id="508f">Regurgitation</h1>At the other end of the spectrum is the kind of article that I think of as the “coattail” article. It’s the article that transparently mines someone else’s work and regurgitates it for the reader.These articles often resemble “listicles” with titles like the “4 Key Takeaways or 3 Key Lessons from [name of famous spiritual author].” The articles simply digest that author’s work. They’re basically an abridged version of that person’s writings, reduced and simplified for the reader.The article author’s credibility is now

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fully dependent on the published, famous author, whose work they’ve amply quoted. But there’s no original contribution from the article writer — nothing that says, for example, how that author implemented that wisdom in their life or in what way their understanding has shifted over time. If this is your approach to writing, you’ve become a mouthpiece for someone else’s work.The upside of this approach is that it clearly cites its source, so no charge of inappropriate lack of citation applies. The downside is that it’s not entirely clear what the contribution is. If you’re bringing to someone’s attention the work of an author that you feel hasn’t been given their due, explain why readers ought to be paying attention to this author.But if the author is well-known, simply summarizing key pieces of Eckhart Tolle’s The Power of Now or Don Miguel Ruiz’s The Four Agreements doesn’t offer the reader much. Many readers are probably already familiar with their tenets, and those who are not can always digest those works for themselves. Indeed, they should, since they might understand the original work differently than you. Without more, why should I presume that your summary of their work does it justice?<h1 id="d8d2">Arguing with Myself</h1>In sum, I am exhorting those of us who write on spiritual topics to respect each other enough to cite someone else’s work without copying it or appropriating it.My training as a lawyer means that I always argue with myself, at least internally, by anticipating counterarguments.There’s an obvious counterargument to everything that I’ve said before: It doesn’t matter because the recycling of spiritual wisdom is the point. Most spiritual wisdom has been said before, in one form or another, using different vocabulary, different concepts. So who cares if it gets recycled? Perhaps we don’t need to adhere to rigid norms of academic writing.But it’s not really about academic norms per se, as if the violation of some code were itself the cause of concern. Rather, I’m concerned about what it says about how we treat one another. We do not treat each other as divine equals when we ignore, copy, misappropriate, and borrow without citation from someone else’s work.I’m willing to entertain the value of repeating spiritual wisdom in new ways. If so, your writing needs to acknowledge that there’s nothing original in concept, only presentation, and drop the pretense of offering original information. If you’re wanting to share your personal experience in spiritual growth — that’s wonderful. Unfortunately, when I can tell that your work basically covers the same ground as every other piece on the internet on that topic, and there’s nothing about the writing that suggests an artistic endeavor, I’m left wondering about the value of its contribution as writing.I’m also willing to entertain the value of articles that summarize other people’s articles. Perhaps a summary article is someone’s point of entry into the world of spiritual wisdom. But take a moment to ponder whether there’s something novel that you can add to the discussion, such as correcting a misperception or pointing to an overlooked aspect of the work.By way of closing, let’s be mindful of the motives behind how we treat other people’s work and whether they’re consistent with the spiritual values we purport to embrace. How we treat others, including other writers, is a measure of our consciousness. If you’re going to be a spiritual writer, acknowledge the contributions that paved the way to your current understanding, rather than erasing them or pretending they don’t exist.</article></body>

The Unbearable Repetition of Spiritual Writing

Recycling, regurgitation, and borderline plagiarism are rampant, and we need to do better.

Fair warning — the thesis of this piece is meant to be controversial: A large portion of spiritual writing on this platform is stuck in a cycle of repeating the same ideas, and, at times, borders on (if not crosses the line into) plagiarism.

This has not been an easy article to write, but after nearly 3 years of publishing on Medium, I felt it needed to be said. If spiritual writing is meant to contribute to humanity’s development, we must be willing to examine our blind spots and the ways that we replicate older forms of consciousness even when we claim to be operating in a more enlightened or loving manner.

Some readers may take offense at what follows. Others may dismiss my arguments as a rant. I don’t adhere to the view that all spiritual writing must be cheery and upbeat. Love isn’t always tender, and compassion isn’t always comforting.

Recycling

How many articles do you come across in a given day on Medium that offer you spiritual platitudes like:

What you focus on, you attract, so change your thoughts and set new intentions to change your life; or,
Meditation and mindfulness will help you find peace and silence by being in the present moment; or,
You don’t need to learn from any “guru” because all the answers are inside?

I won’t be naming specific authors in this piece, because I don’t believe that shaming is generally an effective method of change. But if you feel implicated by the statements above, take a moment to evaluate your approach to writing on spirituality. Bring some awareness to your own writing practices.

There are, of course, many excellent writers on this platform. But as I read through many articles, it feels like few authors bother to check if any other writer has already addressed the topic, much less look to sources like published books. Somehow, as if by spiritual osmosis, the same messages get repeated.

My objection is not that they are repeated, but that they are repeated as if they were being uttered for the first time. Writers often present these ideas as if they were the first to come across meditation, the law of attraction, or the idea that the divine is inside. How many articles introducing me to the chakras or gratitude can I read? If often seems that authors have not bothered to run a search on Medium to see if someone else has already written what their about to publish or, if they did, chose to ignore them.

In fact, many people have already written extensively about these topics. Presenting such ideas as if they were newly discovered terrain denigrates the efforts of other writers who have already contributed to our understanding of a particular topic. It’s one thing to speak of something as a baseline, as common ground, and it’s another to present it as if this were a new insight.

These articles often take the form of “I’ve discovered that [fill in the blank with spiritual insight]” or give you orders like “breath and focus on the present.” Wait, you’ve discovered the law of attraction or the power of the present moment? What people really mean to say is that they finally understand through their experiences a certain piece of wisdom. They’ve suddenly felt the lightbulb of illumination — a moment where body, emotion, and mind all resonate and you say to yourself, I finally get this.

But if that’s the case, then don’t present these ideas as if they were your creation. Instead, cite some sources or present them as common spiritual knowledge, and make clear what new insight about them you are bringing to the table. Find a way to offer an original take on spiritual wisdom, perhaps by showing how your life benefited from it.

Soft Plagiarism

Sometimes work on this platform borders quite closely on plagiarism. I’m sure that outright plagiarism exists on Medium, and no one claiming to be on a spiritual path can justify ripping off someone else’s words.

What I’m talking about is soft plagiarism. It’s the plagiarism of the undergraduate student who thinks that paraphrasing everything means you don’t have to cite anything. Sure, you’ve changed some words around, but the ideas belonged to someone else. I’ve read countless articles on universal laws, chakras, or tarot cards that happen to track with uncanny precision the language of other articles on the internet, so much so that a simple Google search turns up countless sites that could easily pass as source material.

If that’s the case, it’s fairly safe to assume that either (a) the wisdom being passed off as original is now commonplace in the spiritual world, or (b) you copied or derived your work from another source. If the former, you need to acknowledge that your work is not original (and think about whether your article offers anything new to the reader before publishing), and if the latter, then you need to cite your source(s).

One interpretation is that writers are lazy or lacking in integrity but committed to churning out articles to build their brand and earn money. A more charitable approach is to assume that they’re excited by what they’re learning and want to share it with others. Yet another interpretation is that these trends in writing are rooted in a rejection of all expertise — no need to listen to gurus or fellow writers. None of these reasons justifies copying or regurgitating existing spiritual works.

The third interpretation deserves a bit more attention. The tenet “the divine is inside” has now been taken up to mean that you have all the answers already, so everything you say is original to you, and therefore, you need not acknowledge that anybody else has ever written on this topic before. Ironically, the very idea that “the divine is inside” is not an original thought — this idea has been circulating widely for some time.

Maybe you have all the answers you need right now for your life, but that doesn’t authorize you to regurgitate other writers’ works as if your own. Besides, why bother to write anything if everybody already has all the answers they need inside of them?

Regurgitation

At the other end of the spectrum is the kind of article that I think of as the “coattail” article. It’s the article that transparently mines someone else’s work and regurgitates it for the reader.

These articles often resemble “listicles” with titles like the “4 Key Takeaways or 3 Key Lessons from [name of famous spiritual author].” The articles simply digest that author’s work. They’re basically an abridged version of that person’s writings, reduced and simplified for the reader.

The article author’s credibility is now fully dependent on the published, famous author, whose work they’ve amply quoted. But there’s no original contribution from the article writer — nothing that says, for example, how that author implemented that wisdom in their life or in what way their understanding has shifted over time. If this is your approach to writing, you’ve become a mouthpiece for someone else’s work.

The upside of this approach is that it clearly cites its source, so no charge of inappropriate lack of citation applies. The downside is that it’s not entirely clear what the contribution is. If you’re bringing to someone’s attention the work of an author that you feel hasn’t been given their due, explain why readers ought to be paying attention to this author.

But if the author is well-known, simply summarizing key pieces of Eckhart Tolle’s The Power of Now or Don Miguel Ruiz’s The Four Agreements doesn’t offer the reader much. Many readers are probably already familiar with their tenets, and those who are not can always digest those works for themselves. Indeed, they should, since they might understand the original work differently than you. Without more, why should I presume that your summary of their work does it justice?

Arguing with Myself

In sum, I am exhorting those of us who write on spiritual topics to respect each other enough to cite someone else’s work without copying it or appropriating it.

My training as a lawyer means that I always argue with myself, at least internally, by anticipating counterarguments.

There’s an obvious counterargument to everything that I’ve said before: It doesn’t matter because the recycling of spiritual wisdom is the point. Most spiritual wisdom has been said before, in one form or another, using different vocabulary, different concepts. So who cares if it gets recycled? Perhaps we don’t need to adhere to rigid norms of academic writing.

But it’s not really about academic norms per se, as if the violation of some code were itself the cause of concern. Rather, I’m concerned about what it says about how we treat one another. We do not treat each other as divine equals when we ignore, copy, misappropriate, and borrow without citation from someone else’s work.

I’m willing to entertain the value of repeating spiritual wisdom in new ways. If so, your writing needs to acknowledge that there’s nothing original in concept, only presentation, and drop the pretense of offering original information. If you’re wanting to share your personal experience in spiritual growth — that’s wonderful. Unfortunately, when I can tell that your work basically covers the same ground as every other piece on the internet on that topic, and there’s nothing about the writing that suggests an artistic endeavor, I’m left wondering about the value of its contribution as writing.

I’m also willing to entertain the value of articles that summarize other people’s articles. Perhaps a summary article is someone’s point of entry into the world of spiritual wisdom. But take a moment to ponder whether there’s something novel that you can add to the discussion, such as correcting a misperception or pointing to an overlooked aspect of the work.

By way of closing, let’s be mindful of the motives behind how we treat other people’s work and whether they’re consistent with the spiritual values we purport to embrace. How we treat others, including other writers, is a measure of our consciousness. If you’re going to be a spiritual writer, acknowledge the contributions that paved the way to your current understanding, rather than erasing them or pretending they don’t exist.