<Li> Latter - day Saint prophet Joseph Smith Jr. taught that the concept of spirit as incorporeal or without substance was incorrect: "There is no such thing as immaterial matter . All spirit is matter, but it is more fine or pure, and can only be discerned by purer eyes ." </Li> <Li> In some Native American spiritual traditions the Great Spirit or Wakan Tanka is a term for the Supreme Being . </Li> <Li> Various forms of animism, such as Japan's Shinto and African traditional religion, focus on invisible beings that represent or connect with plants, animals (sometimes called "Animal Fathers"), or landforms (kami): translators usually employ the English word "spirit" when trying to express the idea of such entities . </Li> <Li> Individual spirits envisaged as interconnected with all other spirits and with "The Spirit" (singular and capitalized). This concept relates to theories of a unified spirituality, to universal consciousness and to some concepts of Deity . In this scenario all separate "spirits", when connected, form a greater unity, the Spirit, which has an identity separate from its elements plus a consciousness and intellect greater than its elements; an ultimate, unified, non-dual awareness or force of life combining or transcending all individual units of consciousness . The experience of such a connection can become a primary basis for spiritual belief . The term spirit occurs in this sense in (to name but a few) Anthroposophy, Aurobindo, A Course In Miracles, Hegel, Ken Wilber, and Meher Baba (though in his teachings, "spirits" are only apparently separate from each other and from "The Spirit .") In this use, the term seems conceptually identical to Plotinus's "The One" and Friedrich Schelling's "Absolute". Similarly, according to the panentheistic / pantheistic view, Spirit equates to essence that can manifest itself as mind / soul through any level in pantheistic hierarchy / holarchy, such as through a mind / soul of a single cell (with very primitive, elemental consciousness), or through a human or animal mind / soul (with consciousness on a level of organic synergy of an individual human / animal), or through a (superior) mind / soul with synergetically extremely complex / sophisticated consciousness of whole galaxies involving all sub-levels, all emanating (since the superior mind / soul operates non-dimensionally, or trans - dimensionally) from the one Spirit . </Li>

Derived from a greek word meaning breath spirit