# When Did The Spiritual Decay Start? > When did spiritual decay start? An investigation into how disconnecting from wilderness and drowning in consumer algorithms eroded the human spirit. - Author: Saba Foladashvili (https://sfolada.com) - Published: April 21, 2026 - Updated: October 21, 2026 - URL: https://sfolada.com/blog/when-did-spiritual-decay-start - Topics: Philosophy, Spirituality, Nature, Modernity, Consumerism Unfortunately, people have decayed spiritually. By that, I mean a literal estrangement from understanding who they truly are. People are lost. They have lost their morals, values, and priorities; it seems like they are deaf to their own inner voice and blind to the reality they want to live in. The more I observe this phenomenon, the more I’m convinced of it. Logically, the question arising from these circumstances is: "How can we fix that?" but I believe a more beneficial question is: "What caused it?" The primary and arguably most profound catalyst for this decline is our fundamental disconnection from nature. By cutting ourselves off from the natural world, we have gone blind. We have traded the raw, beautiful portraits of the earth for the lifeless skyscrapers and machines. But when you go back out into the wild, finally, the silence speaks. Nature has no use for your status, your worries, or the never-ending, chaotic noise of your life. It literally reshapes you. It turns you from a consumer of comfortable lies into a creature of truth. And that is all because of that simple portrait, filled with green trees, vibrant rivers, and unconquerable mountains, satisfying you like the substance of life. When you stand in front of natural beauty, the “weak” human (the one who always needs to be validated) begins to break down. It is in this silence that you are born again. You kind of have the will to start hammering out your own values from the granite of your own experiences. You stop being a spectator in your own life and instead become the architect. To touch the wild is to remember who you are. It is the only way to stop rotting and start creating. The second primary cause is our descent into mass consumerism. This is the moment the average human stopped listening to their own voice. Just consider a regular day in the life of a modern human: at what point do they actually listen to themselves? Almost never. Either they are working OR are glued to their phones, no matter where they are - in the bathroom, the shower, a high-end restaurant, or even at a family gathering. It literally does not matter. The result is a profound degradation of our capacity to think. People have forgotten how to think, let alone create, since creation is an act that DEMANDS deep, intentional thought. So, the spiritual decay started when we exchanged the sacred nature for comfortable cement and instead of thinking beneath the trees, started scrolling on the sofa. ## Frequently asked questions ### When did spiritual decay start in modern civilization? Spiritual decay accelerated during the industrial and digital transitions, when humanity systematically exchanged organic ecological immersion for climate-controlled urban concrete, and replaced internal contemplation with endless consumer media feeds. ### How does severing our connection to nature impact mental and spiritual health? Natural landscapes provide a recalibrating silence that strips away artificial social status and performative anxieties. Severing that connection removes the primary sensory baseline that grounds human humility, leaving individuals hyper-dependent on artificial validation and social constructs. ### Why does mass consumerism erode the ability to think independently? Continuous engagement with smartphones and consumer entertainment occupies every cognitive pause—from work commutes to mundane routines. By eliminating stillness, the brain loses the capacity for autonomous reflection and default-mode network processing, preventing deep synthesis and creative creation.