Spiritus Mundi

The words "Spiritus Mundi," Latin for the Spirit of the World or World Spirit, are probably familiar to most of us through W.B. Yeats' poem The Second Coming.  In that poem he refers to an image out of it with the body of a lion and the face of a man.  I've never been sure what he meant by the reference.  In what sense does such an image arise "out of" the Spirit of the World?

Apparently Yeats thought Spiritus Mundi was the collective memory or spirit from which poetry derived.  Why such an image would arise out of such a thing is unclear to me.  The image is readily available from the Sphinx sitting near the pyramids.  Perhaps Yeats thought it was from Spiritus Mundi as well.

Regardless, Spiritus Mundi strikes me as an apt description of the divinity of the ancient Stoics.  But I read that according to Cicero the Stoics used the phrase Anima Mundi or Aninum Mundi--World Soul--which may be a more appropriate description of the physical source of order and generation immanent in the universe.

Was Yeats a Stoic?  In Sailing to Byzantium he refers to "God's Holy Fire" and sages standing in it, which certainly evokes Stoicism, but this is unlikely.  But one wonders (the "one" is me, I suppose) if the attraction to mysticism which seems to have been common to artists in the early twentieth century may resemble a Stoic view in mysticism's association with nature, or at least spirits of nature.  That association may not be with the Stoic's view of the deity infusing nature as being a rational spirit.  There seems to be little of the rational in mysticism, or sympathy for reason.  But how can Stoicism be said to be contrary to nature worship, which is often referred to as mysticism?

Other views of the divine as being spirits or powers of nature which can be found in the pre-Christian West and otherwise in the East can be seen as similar to Stoicism in that they have as their basis a belief that humans are a part of nature, dependent on it and subject to it, living in it with other beings, some more powerful.  Perhaps such a view necessarily arises from a belief in God or gods that are immanent in nature or natural, rather than transcendent or supernatural.

Which view has served us better, immanence or transcendence?  This can be a purely practical or pragmatic question rather than a religious or spiritual question.  If we look at the history of humans and their religious beliefs, what religions have caused more evil, regardless of their protestations against it?  The answer to that question seems fairly clear to me.  If it is possible to consider a religion in isolation, what religions qua religions are more or less likely to induce humans to violence against each other and against other beings, and nature itself?

I would say those that are intolerant of other kinds of belief, those which purport to be the only path to knowledge and salvation, to worship the only true God, those which think of humans as masters of the earth and all that's in it.  In other words, those that do not recognize a Spiritus Mundi or anything like it.