Spirit resides in the brain with thought

The source of the spirit is the human brain. Not a male brain, not a female brain, but a human brain that changes in response to life experiences from cradle to grave physically reshaping its structures to adapt to changing environments.
Some of the forces that shape the brain are survival pressures from nature. Finding food and shelter, eluding predators and responding to other survival pressures change the physical structures in the brain, as modern medical technology documents.
But our brain is also a social instrument so it is not surprising that it can change in response to social pressures. Although some pressures aid survival, there are also social pressures that are based on how to control each other. While it is helpful that a child be controlled by adults, once the child becomes an individual, it is necessary for the individual to control itself even though it is easier to hope that something supernatural will take the place of vulnerable, aging, human parents. Religion, governments, traditions, all put pressure on the individual to conform.
Although conformity has some survival benefits, it comes at a high price of binding the spirit. Obedience is easy, self-determination is difficult. Each individual has the power to decide whether they will have a free spirit or one that is defined and confined by powerful institutions that have no special interest in the individual.
Churches teach sin as a way of controlling the spirit. Depending on the culture, religion tells individuals how to dress, how to speak, what to believe, and where safety can be found. But churches do not function for the benefit of the individual, only for the benefit of the powerful few leaders.

Governments use laws to control the spirit. Although laws against killing and thievery are useful social tools, laws that define everyday actions are simply another way for a powerful few to control individual spirits. Laws that dictate where can go, or what jobs they can have, or when they can work, exist to threaten and coerce behavior.

Traditions exist to control change from one generation to the next. There is often something comforting in traditions, but just as often traditions exist to prevent power from going from one group of people to another. In some countries, the traditions are expressed as ‘class.’ People born in a noble class are thought to be, in some inexplicable way, superior to other people. Because this tradition is based on birth rather than on individual ability, their real purpose is to control who has power.

These different elements, religions, laws, and traditions are powerful forces in shaping the human brain but they have one common flaw: the ideas they are based on can be examined and changed or cast aside. Just as our spirits have been shaped by experiences, we can reshape them with new ones.
Education and debate can open the spirit to new possibilities. By simply asking the question, ‘Is that true?’ our brain structures leap into action, firing neurons, lighting up neural pathways, and measuring old information against new concepts. Like exercising our muscles, once we exercise our brains with new concepts, our spirits becomes stronger.
Nancy Sherer