Spiritualty vs Religion... differences?

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I think people who look for the truth away from home certainly deserve the credit, but that alone doesn't necessarily make it true (you would probably not be impressed by an instance of a Japanese conversion to Christianity for example, and we could apply the same logic to locals investing into Eastern spirituality).

In Europe at least, the pronounced and consistent appeal to tradition, old lore and whatnot, with the stressed focus on the roots usually leads to paganism. Sometimes it turns out funny because not every culture has recorded documents of pagan traditions of the past, but if the enthusiasm is high enough some questionable "doctors" come up with their own and that is put to extended use.

I can give you some spiritual idea here that seems very fundamental.
My brother is a Christian and he believes in something called the "Holy Spirit". This Holy Spirit guides him away from danger and guides him towards things that will help him in life. I have sensed something very similar in me, but I found my head has to be as clear as possible for some sort of spirit within me to guide me. Non-spiritualists will tell me that it's just me following my "gut feeling" but I digress. It seems to go deeper than just a gut feeling. It's like you feel something else inside you and you make a decision without knowing the consequences ahead of time. Sometimes the decision making works out for the better and you listened to that feeling. Example: my brother takes in his car to a shop because something is telling him to. The car mechanic looks at the car and tells him "good thing you brought your car in. Your engine was blowing smoke and was about to blow up. You could have died" People will dismiss this as just a coincidence, and some may even call this a miracle. But he will tell me he felt something guide him and it went beyond a gut feeling.
Another fundamental idea is the thought of your mind. One author named don Miguel Ruiz will tell you in his books that your mind is just a "voice of knowledge" and it can be filled up with all sorts of lies and facts. But the real truth comes from your emotions.

Perhaps a metaphor will help explain what I believe is the difference between religion and spirituality. Spirituality is ecstasy. Religion is pornography. In other words religion is vicarious. Spirituality is the direct experience of God.
Religion is as silly as eating the word "hamburger ". The difference between spirituality and religion is similar to the difference between syntax/semantics and signifier/signified.

Spirituality I feel, is defiled by religion, spirituality is natural to the human state, but religion shackles it to a set of dogma and authority figures to control people. Spirituality is personal, Religion is political.

Religion is codified, spirituality tends to be more pragmatic/eclectic for better or worse.

I've never thought of Religion and Spirituality as being the same thing. Spiritual people don't worship anything. They certainly don't have to go to Church or really do anything. Spirituality must be quite freeing. If it isn't, you're doing it wrong.
Alan Watts is a great person to listen to (look him up on Youtube), he's made me start to wonder about that side of things.

You don't need religion to be spiritual. Spirituality is imprinted into our genetics. I owe it to the fact that God made us spiritual creatures, you can owe it to evolution, but there is no way of denying the spiritual nature of the human creature. You can feel spiritual seeing a powerful scenic view of a great valley, a beautiful lake, or majestic mountains. You can feel spiritual through yoga and meditation. The point of religion and religious is to aim that spirituality, in service of humanity, and the common good. They tend to fail most of the time, but when done right, one can look upon it as the first form of humanism.