Spiritual bypass (or spiritual bypassing) happens when someone uses spiritual excuses for avoiding facing important issues. One very common example is when people refuse to acknowledge any sort of negative emotions or behavior. It’s all good, only good vibes here, etc… This is an example of toxic positivity.
Other examples might include the notion that anger or fear is never allowed; or telling people to raise their vibrations if they’re unhappy. In general, a person uses spiritual bypassing to avoid dealing with difficult situations, or unsettling emotions.
I’d say it’s taking refuge in the appearance of spirituality, using the spiritual concepts and language to hide behind. Doing this is unhelpful, and can do great harm. Often a person will tell someone that their suffering “isn’t real,” or they’ve somehow “manifested” it. Saying such things does nothing to help; all it does is trivialize a person’s pain and cut them off from finding solace.
The person doing the bypassing also suffers. They create unrealistic scenarios where they’re above it all, have no attachments, have no anger or fear, etc. The problem is that saying it don’t make it so. A highly spiritual person may, after years of practice, find themselves unattached and with little anger or fear. However, they didn’t get there by pretending they don’t have those emotions.
Asserting that they’ have no attachment, fear, or anger results in them having to use considerable effort to squelch those emotions; and when you do that, those emotions don’t go away. They simply become subversive.