Spiritual Hierarchy of Being: The Embodied-Cognitive Perspective

Have you ever wondered why gods and angels are ‘above’, while devils and demons are ‘below’? And, why ‘stooping low’ and ‘falling’ are metaphors for something morally or spiritually bad, while doing something ‘uplifting’ and ‘rising to the occasion’ are good?

While not exactly universal, placing beings and predicaments onto a vertical kind of spiritual and moral hierarchy is common to many cultures. Embodied cognition helps us understand this. We argue that its findings and interpretations have important implications for philosophy of religion and theology.