The Dictionary of Spiritual Terms is a project headed by World Wisdom, a publisher of books on the world's spiritual traditions. We have been publishing qualitative books for over 20 years.

The purpose of the Dictionary is to make available to students and seekers some of the terms used in the great religions of the world. Hopefully, this will be useful in helping readers understand texts from many different traditions. There is no commercial intent in our posting the Dictionary. We cite this online dictionary in our books on spirituality as a supplement to the glossaries that we include in the books. An advantage to everyone, our readers and ourselves, is that we can add and correct entries here much more easily than we can in books that have been printed and sold to readers! Since these terms are available online to our readers, they may as well also benefit others, so we have allowed access to them to anyone on the worldwide web.

As any reader can see, the Dicitionary of Spiritual Terms is a monumental task. We try to add as many words to it as we can, but our efforts can never be adequate to the potential of this service. We would be very happy for the well-meaning help of readers, whether they be recreational readers of spiritual books or students in formal classes on religion looking for a class project. Anyone or any group that would like to collaborate with us on this project, please contact:


Readers are also welcome to contact us with corrections to terms or with suggestions. We wish you productive seeking through these spiritual terms.