A “spiritual experience” is an altered state of mind, but not all altered states of mind are spiritual experiences.
I’ve gotten a lot of pushback on my use of the word “spiritual”, and I am mindful that this word has a lot of irrational baggage associated with it. And I’m open to suggestions, but so far no one has been able to come up with a suitable alternative.
Spirituality is a complex multidimensional concept (Cook 2004; Hill et al. 2000; George et al. 2000; Moberg 2002). The concept defies clear-cut boundaries, which also applies to other latent constructs that are often used, such as character, well-being and health (Miller and Thoresen 2003). Many definitions of spirituality have been proposed from different disciplines and perspectives. For example, spirituality has been described as “the way in which people understand and live their lives in view of their ultimate meaning and value” (Muldoon and King 1995), p. 336), as “a subjective experience of the sacred” (Vaughan 1991, p. 105), and as “a quality that goes beyond religious affiliation, that strives for inspirations, reverence, awe, meaning and purpose, even in those who do not believe in any good.” (Murray and Zenter 1989). It seems almost impossible to find a description with which the majority of people would agree. Zinnbauer et al. (1999) described five studies in which various groups of people were asked to define spirituality. They concluded that differences in the responses of the participants outweighed by far the similarities. McSherry and Cash (2004) even stated that we should accept that the word ‘spirituality’ has different meanings.
have defined spirituality as one’s striving for and experience of connection with oneself, connectedness with others and nature and connectedness with the transcendent.
And I think the spiritual experience lisper is referring to is the last:
Aspects related to this last theme are awe, hope, sacredness, adoration of the transcendent and transcendental experiences.
Interestingly the hypothesis that people take these experiences as evidence for God is confirmed by the facts:
Subscales that measure transcendental aspects are moderately or strongly associated (r ≥ .30) with religiosity measures.
have defined spirituality as one’s striving for and experience of connection with oneself, connectedness with others and nature and connectedness with the transcendent.
I don’t find that useful at all.
Let’s say I took some magic mushrooms, ran naked around the desert for a while, and experienced certain somethings. On the basis of what would I decide whether my experience was “spiritual” or “not spiritual”?
Yeah, I mean something slightly more specific, but still hard to get a linguistic handle on. I mean a kind of subjective experience that can be induced by certain practices (prayer, meditation, walking in the woods...) that manifests as feelings ranging from a kind of euphoric awe to a palpable sense of the presence of supernatural forces. It is distinct from alcohol intoxication, love, lust, the qualia of eating delicious food or listening to music and a host of other things that are part and parcel of the human experience (at least for most humans).
Well, generally people call things “spiritual” when they do all that other stuff you mentioned, and then think that the resulting states of mind are about the world in some reliable-causal-link sense.
A “spiritual experience” is an altered state of mind, but not all altered states of mind are spiritual experiences.
I’ve gotten a lot of pushback on my use of the word “spiritual”, and I am mindful that this word has a lot of irrational baggage associated with it. And I’m open to suggestions, but so far no one has been able to come up with a suitable alternative.
Can you define a “spiritual experience”, then? What distinguishes it from other kinds of altered state of mind?
Apparently that isn’t easy.
-- Measuring Spirituality as a Universal Human Experience: A Review of Spirituality Questionnaires by Eltica de Jager Meezenbroek
Consequently they
And I think the spiritual experience lisper is referring to is the last:
Interestingly the hypothesis that people take these experiences as evidence for God is confirmed by the facts:
I don’t find that useful at all.
Let’s say I took some magic mushrooms, ran naked around the desert for a while, and experienced certain somethings. On the basis of what would I decide whether my experience was “spiritual” or “not spiritual”?
If it is different from other experiences you had?
Maybe you could go thru this list and look whether anything looks unknown to you:
http://www.unexplainedstuff.com/Mysteries-of-the-Mind/Altered-States-of-Consciousness.html
Yes, sure :-D It certainly qualifies as an “altered state of consciousness”. But does it qualify as “spiritual”? How do I decide?
Might be helpful to check out the definition of spirituality :-)
Still not useful.
Presumably, lisper, being the author, means something by that word, other than vague handwaving in a vague direction like Wikipedia does.
Yeah, I mean something slightly more specific, but still hard to get a linguistic handle on. I mean a kind of subjective experience that can be induced by certain practices (prayer, meditation, walking in the woods...) that manifests as feelings ranging from a kind of euphoric awe to a palpable sense of the presence of supernatural forces. It is distinct from alcohol intoxication, love, lust, the qualia of eating delicious food or listening to music and a host of other things that are part and parcel of the human experience (at least for most humans).
So, going back to my question, how do I decide whether my altered state of consciousness was “spiritual”?
Answering that is kind of like trying to tell you how you can decide if you’re in love. If it was spiritual, you’ll know.
The traditional comparison is to how do you figure out what’s porn -- “I can’t define it, but I know it when I see it” :-D
Well, generally people call things “spiritual” when they do all that other stuff you mentioned, and then think that the resulting states of mind are about the world in some reliable-causal-link sense.