Spirituality

Mystical and Secular

Responses

Skip to Comments

By Michael Allan | February 7, 2026

Michael Allan

My first camera was a half frame Leica with a fixed lens that I would take backpacking in the Sierra Nevada Mountains when I was in high school. I graduated to a Pentax K1000 and Kodachrome when my boys were old enough to backpack in Colorado with me, but when they were teens with a life of their own, the camera went into a drawer. Several years ago I picked up an all in one Sony and started backpacking again. One thing led to another and I bought a Sony A7r, then upgraded that, bought a printer, and I never looked back. I now mostly shoot black and white with a focus on printing.

michaelallan.gallery

...experience thrives on engagement and participation rather than doubt and detachment. It is constituted by numberless acts of intuition, discernment, and judgment whose full import stands to be sifted in dialogue with other members of the interpretive communities we inhabit. ~Thomas Pfau

Resonance was described as a relationship based on action and intuition with a practical description of three modes: Iconic, Schematic, and Conceptual. This article looks beyond the surface for a deeper resonance in the spiritual domain and the role photography plays.

Spirituality is a sensitive subject because it touches the core beliefs of many people.

The first type of spirituality is Mystical Spirituality, which is an orientation towards the ineffable. The second type is Secular Spirituality, which is an orientation towards the “actual.” The third, not addressed in this article, is Religious Spirituality, which is found in churches, temples, and theology.

However, spirituality is part of most people’s lives, so it behoves us to consider forms of resonance enabled by spirituality. It is especially important for landscape photography, because nature is often considered a spiritual source

The first type of spirituality is Mystical Spirituality, which is an orientation towards the ineffable. The second type is Secular Spirituality, which is an orientation towards the “actual.” The third, not addressed in this article, is Religious Spirituality, which is found in churches, temples, and theology.

Mystical Spirituality

The goal of Mystical Spirituality is the experience of immanence and/or transcendence, or the infinite and the eternal. As far as the everyday world of experience goes, it is a form of detachment from the finite world of the “actual” (Critical Realism).

This article is open to paid and unpaid subscribers so requires at least a free subscription to access. Please take a look at the subscribe page for more information.