The Vital Importance of Context for Spiritual Practices

I recently discovered a documentary that demonstrates very clearly how it is possible for people to be practising all sorts of ''spiritual'' activities, and yet for all of the activities to be completely corrupted by the consciousness of those who are practising it. The documentary is called ''Nazis: The Occult Conspiracy'' (click here to go to website where you can see the whole film)and it basically shows how the Nazis systematically used a whole gamut of religions and spiritual practices in order to promote and justify their message and actions. Amongst the activities that they used were:
Claiming to be descendants of an Atlantean master race (as in from the ancient drowned city of Atlantis which is so prominent in new age circles today), believing themselves to be reincarnations of past (Germanic) heroes, extensive use of astrology, pendulums and other forms of divination, use of runes, meditation, creation of temples and the list goes on!
So, the documentary really is an eye opening piece of work, and I recommend you watch it. The essential message is that it is possible for our own beliefs, agendas and motives to completely corrupt any spiritual activity that we do, and so combining activities such as meditation with ongoing work on our intention, perspective, worldview, clearing of shadow aspects of our personality and so on really is absolutely vital. If our psychology or the complex of thought structures, beliefs and perspectives in our mind is off kilter then this will be reflected in all that we do, including the things that we think of as beng spiritual.