On this website I use the word ‘spiritual’ to cover a wide variety of experiences including: mystical, psychic, paranormal, religious, peak, transcendental, exceptional, anomalous, or simply unusual, experiences.
Yet the word ‘spiritual’ is at one and the same time both frustratingly vague and simultaneously pregnant with ultimate personal meaning. Mysticism is certainly no stranger to paradox! It may help us to think of the spiritual in two aspects: as a thing and as a process, both of which have their experiential dimensions. Always aware, however, that thinking can only take us so far and no further, as experience implies much more than thought alone. It may also be helpful to understand spirituality as relationships. Relationships between self and others, self and environment, self and inner selves, and self and a greater mystery (whatever that may be!)
People have been having spiritual experiences from the beginning of recorded history right up to the present day. Those that have them may be part of a religious or spiritual tradition or belong to none at all. Descriptions of spiritual experience can vary greatly but often have common themes. The vast majority of spiritual experiences are benign or very positive, even blissful or ecstatic. The people that experience them value and benefit from them. Spiritual experiences are associated with good mental health and spirituality is now seen as an important factor in peoples’ overall wellbeing. Spiritual experiences are not due to poor mental health, low intelligence, or gullibility. Spiritual experiences are common in the population and increasingly considered to be a natural and valuable part of being human.
In modern Western society it could be argued that religious traditions are in decline. However, the influence of spirituality, and the experiences that are its life-blood, continues to make itself felt. Mystical, otherworldly, magical, and mythical themes resonate with us in popular culture and on social media, echoing down the centuries and never completely dying out. Even avowed atheists are inspired by the inherent beauty of the natural world or moved by acts of altruistic kindness. There is something about the mysterious and ineffable nature of such experiences that refuses to be reduced to mechanisms and molecules.
Yet the word ‘spiritual’ is at one and the same time both frustratingly vague and simultaneously pregnant with ultimate personal meaning. Mysticism is certainly no stranger to paradox! It may help us to think of the spiritual in two aspects: as a thing and as a process, both of which have their experiential dimensions. Always aware, however, that thinking can only take us so far and no further, as experience implies much more than thought alone. It may also be helpful to understand spirituality as relationships. Relationships between self and others, self and environment, self and inner selves, and self and a greater mystery (whatever that may be!)
People have been having spiritual experiences from the beginning of recorded history right up to the present day. Those that have them may be part of a religious or spiritual tradition or belong to none at all. Descriptions of spiritual experience can vary greatly but often have common themes. The vast majority of spiritual experiences are benign or very positive, even blissful or ecstatic. The people that experience them value and benefit from them. Spiritual experiences are associated with good mental health and spirituality is now seen as an important factor in peoples’ overall wellbeing. Spiritual experiences are not due to poor mental health, low intelligence, or gullibility. Spiritual experiences are common in the population and increasingly considered to be a natural and valuable part of being human.
In modern Western society it could be argued that religious traditions are in decline. However, the influence of spirituality, and the experiences that are its life-blood, continues to make itself felt. Mystical, otherworldly, magical, and mythical themes resonate with us in popular culture and on social media, echoing down the centuries and never completely dying out. Even avowed atheists are inspired by the inherent beauty of the natural world or moved by acts of altruistic kindness. There is something about the mysterious and ineffable nature of such experiences that refuses to be reduced to mechanisms and molecules.
I am a Trustee of the Alister Hardy Trust (AHT). Sir Alister Hardy FRS was a marine biologist who set up the Religious Experience Rsearch Centre (RERC) in Oxford in 1969. Today the RERC is based at th University of Wales Trinity Saint David in Lampeter. The RERC collects accounts and undertakes research into the incidence and nature of religious and spiritual experiences. I ran a monthly study group on this topic for over ten years and one of my articles has been published as an occassional paper by the RERC: On The Side Of The Angels: Neuroscience & Religious Experience, RERC, 2nd Series Occasional Paper #49.
