 The idea that spiritual and mystical experiences occur (or are more apt to occur) in conditions of psychological distress and crisis has a long history (see Sacco, 2013, for a review).
Research has found stressful life contexts to be a common antecedent of spiritual transformations. Many psychologists have written on this connection. Some have concluded there may be a “need” to have a spiritual transformation to overcome the depression and that a spiritual transformation “results” (Spilka, Brown, & Cassidy, 1992). Noting that distressing psychological circumstances often precede spiritual transformations, Spilka et al. (1992) have viewed spiritual transformations as attributions. Attribution theory looks at the way people attribute causes to things they observe. Attributions are motivated by three fundamental aims:
Applying these ideas to spiritual transformation, you might think a person’s life before spiritual transformation should evidence signs of:
You might then think that spiritual transformations are one way to counteract feeling miserable by offering new meaning, a greater sense of control, and a sense of self-esteem. Really? You might want to think twice about believing in an attributional account of spiritual transformation for one crucial reason: Spiritual experience associated with crisis can be predicted. More recently, researchers have found that spiritual transformation is not such a simple process. While spiritual transformation does seem to take place during a period of crisis in the life of the individual, these changes may be related to the effects of dynamical instability. For example, spiritual experience associated with crisis at age 18 can be predicted by mathematical modelling. In this case, newer theories and models are needed to better account for unusual experiences and phenomena during periods of stress. Therefore, contrary to an attributional account spiritual transformation during crisis may have a dynamical explanation. Just because we don’t fully understand mystical experience doesn’t mean they are all in our heads, by any means. Click here to buy a copy of my book on Mystical Experience.
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 The most revolutionary discovery of quantum mechanics is the paradox of quantum nonlocality. This draws attention to the phenomenon known as quantum entanglement.
As a result, quantum mechanics violates the principle of locality. This principle states that changes in one physical system should have no immediate effect on another separated system. Our “local” view of the world assumes phenomena are separated by time and space. Thus, no influence can travel faster than the speed of light. Quantum nonlocality proves these assumptions are mistaken. A principle of holistic interconnectedness exists operating at the quantum level. And this contradicts the local assumptions of classical physics. At the quantum level, instantaneous actions can occur. Science does not appear ready to equate nonlocality with the spiritual realm. However, the nonlocal reality that we live in tends to mimic the properties often associated with the spiritual. Carl Jung developed an acausal understanding of synchronicity. His concept of synchronicity was inspired by quantum theory and through his association with the great physicist Wolfgang Pauli, Science is an approach to knowledge based on causality. Causal explanations emphasize one thing affecting another through an exchange of energy, forces, or information. In contrast, synchronicity involves acausal explanations with no identifiable governing forces or physical energy exchange. With synchronicity, there appear no causal connections between inner and outer events. Instead, they are symbolic expressions of transformative meaning. Thus, they challenge fundamental axioms of science. Click here to buy a copy of my book on Mystical Experience.  The greatest challenge of mystical experience is: How do you communicate your experience to others? How do you integrate your experience into daily life?
There are enormous difficulties in the task of communicating one’s mystical experiences. First, languages are not available with which to describe such feelings or experiences. Religious language has traditionally been the domain within which to describe mystical experiences. Therefore, it is hard for nonreligious people to interpret and describe their experiences. Second, even when languages do exist for describing one’s mystical experience they are often defended against by large segments of the population. There is now a large empirical literature that supports the central principle of Terror Management Theory that cultural worldviews help to buffer anxiety about death and the unknown. This in turn is reflected by increased defensiveness, as well as increased contempt for others that threaten one’s worldview. Thus, under conditions of uncertainty defensiveness often increases because of the need to uphold an authoritative guide for action. Part of the difficulty in reaching consensual understanding about mysticism can be explained in terms of the real conceptual problems involved. Yet, a full explanation calls for an examination of human defensiveness. The greater is the willingness to forgo one’s personal experience as a guide to understanding, the stronger the commitment there must be to an ideological position. This means that ideological commitments lead rational people to focus on information that supports their positions and inaccurately interpret data that might contradict them. These ideological commitments may arise from anything used to reinforce and justify values (e.g., religion, sports, entertainment, and politics). But either way they act to inhibit expressing any experiences that do not fit into consensually negotiated categories. Mystical experience is not a safe topic. But then no cultural conflict was ever solved by ignoring the source and nature of conflict. In short, we need to talk about the deepest areas of the unknown in our culture if we hope to move forward. My aim here is to foster a serious but constructive conversation about mystical experience. Click here to buy a copy of my book on Mystical Experience.  Mystical experiences can be very frightening experiences. I have found this to be true based on personal experience and 15 years of research. Let’s look at this further. Kundalini Eastern traditions have long described sensory, motor, mental and affective symptoms associated with the concept of Kundalini. Symbolized by a coiled sleeping serpent, Kundalini activation (either through spiritual discipline or spontaneously) is believed to bring new states of consciousness, including mystical illumination. Why? Many people have an aversion or fear of snakes. Nonetheless, the ancients around the world thought of snakes as a symbol of life and change. This is probably because of the capacity of snakes to activate the autonomic nervous system (ANS). The ANS regulates bodily functions crucial for arousal and wakefulness (e.g., heart rate, respiratory rate, pupillary response). In fact, many of the symptoms of the Kundalini experience are like those reported during panic attacks.
Mysterium TremenduMOtto’s influential book, The Idea of the Holy, described the “numinous” quality of mystical experience as having two aspects: mysterium tremendum, the tendency to invoke fear and trembling; and mysterium fascinas, the tendency to attract, fascinate and compel.
Anxiety attacks have much in common with spiritual experiences (despite differences in affective tone). For instance, both involve powerful feelings, sensations and perceptions no longer conform to actual events, the total experience is ineffable (i.e., difficult to describe in ordinary language), and an actual or impending dissolution of the self-as-object. If we only focus on the positive aspects of spiritual experiences — without increasing our understanding of the intense fear involved — we run the risk of avoiding what the negative emotions of fear and anxiety might be trying to teach us. But if we become stuck in fear and terror, we run the risk of increasing our inability to maintain adaptive functioning. So, you see, both positive and negative aspects of mystical experiences go hand in hand. Both need to be there for us to experience understanding at its maximum capacity, and to execute our skills in a way that maximizes results in our daily lives. I hope this has given you a more complete understanding of mystical experience, and how important it is to have a healthy relationship to our fears — whether they be about death and dying or any other fears. Because overcoming our fears is the primary way we can ensure our own happiness in life. Click here to buy a copy of my book on Mystical Experience.  What separates mystical experiences from ordinary ones? Hint: it’s not your left brain. You may have heard that the brain consists of two subsystems: the left and right brain. The left region includes thinking that is:
The right region includes thinking that is:
Creative Immersion Mystical experience is based on intuitive gut reactions, instead of analytical thinking. It is similar to the experience of creativity. Some psychologists speculate that a person who has a spiritual experience faces a crisis and attempts to address it within fixed cognitive structures embedded in the brain’s left hemisphere, which yields no solution (Batson, Schoenrade, & Ventis, 1993). The person then undergoes a transforming spiritual experience with the brain switching from left-hemisphere to right-hemisphere dominance. This alters allows for insight “beyond” the person’s conceptual structure. The switch then restructures the left-hemisphere conceptual network that can adaptively deal with the crisis. The right-hemisphere switch can account for the sense of “ineffability,” since the right hemisphere is not analytic or verbal. Because the shift involves “transcending” the cognitive, it may explain the sense of having contact with a “transcendent realm.” Thus, mystical experiences could be understood as part of a problem-solving process and so have a natural adaptive function. Dreams, Symbols, and IntuitioNMany people’s stories of mystical experience emphasize the strange non-rational guidance of:
Mystical experience is contact with the divinity, unity, and transcendence of symbolism. Symbols reveal new levels of reality otherwise closed for us. Because the tiniest symbol can reflect the whole of the psyche, it is easy to see how symbols carry full potential for a deep and wide nexus of interpreted meaning. There are other “ways of knowing.” Science and logic are not the only kind of way of gaining knowledge. What makes intuition (and mystical experience) special is the unique way of learning about truths that cannot be proven to be true. Click here to buy a copy of my book on Mystical Experience. There has been much discussion of the stages of mystical experience. Indeed, William James, a pioneer in the study of mystical experience, first characterized the process as one of “organic ripening.” There are some minor differences in the stages proposed by various scholars. But all the phase-models share similarities to the experience of a psychological crisis. For example, all the models proposed by scholars describe
In my book Mystical Experience: A Psychological Perspective, I described a five-phase crisis model. This model was based on the five major phases of a crisis experience: 1) pre-crisis, 2) impact, 3) crisis, 4) resolution, and 5) post-crisis. Here I will provide an overview of these five phases. Of course, there are limits of any phase-model to capture the essence of mystical experience. Some phases can succeed each other more quickly, some phases can appear to be bypassed, or the process can become locked into a particular phase. However, the usefulness of a crisis model is that it produces testable predictions for empirical research. Phase 1: Pre-Crisis Phase During the pre-crisis stage, the person maintains an equilibrium. The stress they encounter is balanced by their coping mechanisms. To maintain equilibrium people are always solving problems. As long as people believe their problems can be solved using their available coping skills, equilibrium is maintained. Phase 2: Impact Phase A psychological crisis begins with a sudden disruption to important life goals. These disruptions cannot be overcome with usual problem-solving methods. Examples of stressful events precipitating a crisis include: • troubled personal relationships • loss of jobs • financial problems • life transitions • deaths • terminal illnesses The first 1-3 days of a crisis are spent in shock, feeling confused, weak, and helpless, while everything seems to be in chaos. Not all stressed persons move into a crisis state. The external events themselves do not define the crisis, but instead, the person’s responses and reactions to the event do. Phase 3: Crisis Phase The initial impact period brings a 1-3 month crisis period. This is characterized by anxiety, hypersensitivity, irritable mood, tiredness, depression, and sleeping disorders. In the crisis phase the person confronts the problem. The person’s usual strategies have failed to solve the problem brought about by the precipitating event. From this point, the person is in a downward spiral becoming increasingly disorganized, anxious, tense, and hopeless. Sooner or later the person confronts deep-rooted existential concerns about the meaning of life. This is the sense one must, and yet one cannot find any real “truth.” This leads to non-rational guidance. Phase 4: Resolution Phase The resolution phase includes all the new attempts directed toward easing tension. The decision-making processes, however, are based on intuitive gut reactions, instead of analytical thinking. Resolutions have the potential to be adaptive or maladaptive. William James acknowledged mystical experiences were not always positive. He described some that were downright, harmful, evil, and frightening. A comprehensive model of mystical experience needs to consider the potential for both positive and negative outcomes. Phase 5: Post-Crisis Phase The post-crisis phase is the 2-12 month period after which the above phases have passed. This last phase is a period of restoration, rebuilding, and readjustment. It is a period of significant, sometimes radical, transformation in the person. Some equilibrium is restored during the post-crisis phase. Yet this equilibrium can be lower, the same, or higher than the one previous to the crisis. Figure 4 illustrates four potential consequences after encountering an adverse event.
 Figure 4. Four possible outcomes of adversity Mystical experiences often cause positive, lasting effects. The positive change has been classified into four areas toward self, others, life, and the mystical experience itself.
First, the mystical experience induces a powerful transformation in one’s personality. The personality changes are not so much at the level of core personality traits. Instead, goals, feelings, attitudes, behaviors, and life meaning are radically transformed. The second change following mystical states is the person acts more open, authentic, and tolerant of others. The third change is about attitudes toward life. Mystical experience often facilities the emergence of hope. Purpose and meaning become more prominent in everyday life. The last change involves attitudes toward the mystical experience. There is a new, more profound understanding of the role mystical experiences play in the unfolding of life. So, the next time you have a stressful life event occur, and seem to despair about life’s meaning, it could be the first step to transformation. Which could lead you to a greater experience of meaning than you could ever imagine. Click here to buy a copy of my book on Mystical Experience. The concept of unity consciousness can be difficult to understand. But as I addressed in the last post: It’s at the core of the mystical experience. And there are ways to make it easier to understand! Don’t think that unity experienced in meditation is the only type of unity you can experience! Now, you’re wondering how to make sense of unity consciousness. The first step is to differentiate between the two essential components of mystical experience: (1) content and (2) process. As I have addressed, the content component (i.e., “what” the experience is about) is about unity. The process component (i.e., “how” the experience occurs in space and time) has two interacting parts: (a) symbolism, and (b) ego-dissolution. Figure 1 shows how these components interact to increase the intensity of the experience.  Figure 1. The intensity of mystical experience increased when more factors appear together: 1 = no or mild mystical experience, 2 = moderate mystical experience, 3 = intense mystical experience. Unity The most essential characteristic of the mystical experience is unity. The subject or observer no longer feels the usual separation between themselves and the world. Yet the subject still knows on another level, they are separate from objects (i.e., they are not delusional). In a mystical experience a person feels that they are a part of everything. This can be perceived with the physical senses through the external world. A sense of underlying oneness is felt in the multiplicity of objects in the world. Ego-Dissolution Mystical experience also involves a process of “ego-dissolution.” There is a loss of the common sense of self while becoming one with the external world or cosmos. This ego-dissolution involves anxiety, panic, and a sense of unreality. Often the feeling of dreaminess is the most frightening aspect of anxiety or panic. Negative life events often occur prior to mystical experiences because they disrupt the ego. Because the ego no longer exists as an organizing force the person enters the “unknown.” Symbolism Mystical experience also involves signs and synchronicity.
That’s the conclusion of Alister Hardy’s study of the written responses of more than 5,000 persons, who found the most common spiritual experiences included: “a patterning of events in a person’s life that convinces him or her that in some strange way they were meant to happen.” Another large survey of religious-like experiences they revealed the “commonest of all the categories” referred to “extraordinary coincidence(s) or to a sense somehow one’s life has an unfolding pattern to it.” The mystical experience is not explainable within the conventional natural order of our everyday world. Thus the term “supernatural” is helpful in this context. Carl Jung originated the concept of synchronicity, the view the structure of reality includes a principle of non-causal connection. Synchronicity explains the sense of “wholeness,” “connectedness,” and “unity” in mystical experience. However, a persistent theme in the study of mystical experiences is the lack of attention given by theorists to the concept of synchronicity. In my opinion, most researchers neglect just what is essential to the phenomena of mysticism. So there you have it. I hope I have convinced you why three features (e.g., unity, ego-dissolution, and symbolism) make up the mystical experience content and process! Click here to buy a copy of my book on Mystical Experience. One may say truly, I think, that personal religious experience has its root and center in mystical states of consciousness. —William James (1902, p. 379) Have you ever had a mystical experience? What separates a mystical experience from an ordinary one? The Core of Mystical Experience Researchers agree the one essential feature of mystical experience is an experience of unity. Indeed, debates on mystical experience are best understood in terms of how this unity is to be interpreted. Much of the Western study on mystical experience begins with reference to William James’s book Varieties of Religious Experience. James tells us that mystical experience is a relatively rare event in which individual consciousness merges in radical unity with the universe. James identified four characteristics of all mystical experiences:
What is essential from James’s investigation is the notion that mystical experience is different from the everyday world of experience. James set the standard for the modern study of mystical experience. Introvertive and Extrovertive Unity One of the questions researchers have asked since James work is: What is the mystical experience of unity all about exactly?
Stace (1960) contended that the mystical experience of unity is expressed in one of two ways: “introvertive” and “extrovertive.” In the introvertive type of unity the subject “looks inward into the mind” to achieve “pure consciousness.” This type of unity is experienced during meditation with one’s eyes closed and is perceived as an experience of nothingness. In the extrovertive type of unity the subject “looks outward through the senses” (Stace, 1960, p. 110) and grasps the unity of all things in or through the multiplicity of the natural world. In this type of experience all things are felt to be alive (e.g., stones, trees, the sky). Look for future posts about mystical experience over the next several months. |
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