Spirit

The term spirit has several different uses in different fields.

Religion and spirituality

In the fields of religion and spirituality, the term spirit may mean:

• The soul of an individual person
• A spiritual being, such as a ghost
• The Holy Spirit (also known as the Holy Ghost)
• An ultimate, unified, nondual awareness combinining or transcending all individual souls or individual units of consciousness; the term spirit has been used in this sense by at least Anthroposophy, Aurobindo, A Course In Miracles, Hegel, and Ken Wilber. In this use, the term is conceptually identical to Plotinus's "One" and Friedrich Schelling's "Absolute." Similar to Greek pneuma.

Other fields

Outside the fields of religion and spirituality, the term spirit may mean:

• Alcohol, or a distilled alcoholic beverage (not wine or beer)
• A classical element -- also known as aether, akasha or quintessence -- representing the fifth element (the other four being earth, air, fire and water)
• The B-2 Spirit (official name of the United States Air Force's stealth bomber)
• Spirit Airlines, a Florida-based airline company using McDonnell Douglas DC-9 jets to fly around Florida cities, to the Northeast and Luis Munoz Marin International Airport in Puerto Rico
• NASA's Mars Exploration Rover Mission rover MER-A, named "Spirit"
• A 1970s psychedelic band: see Spirit (band)
• A Flemish social-democratic political party, forming a cartel with the socialist party SP.a