The Varieties of Spiritual Experience
October 15, 2022
David B. Yaden, Andrew B. Newberg
Abstract: Spiritual experiences could be beneficial in the context of clinical interventions and may become an important avenue for helping people who suffer from mental illness. Mindfulness and other meditation practices, which can sometimes give rise to spiritual experiences, have become a standard practice in healthcare. More recently, psychedelic compounds are poised to make a breakthrough...
The Varieties of Spiritual Experience
October 15, 2022
David B. Yaden, Andrew B. Newberg
Abstract Mystical experiences are among the most well-studied spiritual experience. This chapter defines mystical experience as inner experiences involving an intensely felt fading of the sense of self and/or feelings of increased connectedness, up to and including the sense of complete unity. These kinds of feelings go well beyond our normal day to day sense of self-awareness. In ordinary...
The Varieties of Spiritual Experience
October 15, 2022
David B. Yaden, Andrew B. Newberg
Abstract: According to William James, to understand a person’s beliefs, then seek to learn more about that person’s temperament and life circumstances. Thus, this chapter focuses on the story of William James’s life and his influences to understand how he developed the worldview that he brought to The Varieties of Religious Experience. James’s life was in many ways a study in contrasts. He...
The Varieties of Spiritual Experience
October 15, 2022
David B. Yaden, Andrew B. Newberg
Abstract Among life’s biggest questions—up there with the origins of the universe—is: Why and how are people aware at all? The sense of awareness, or what is commonly called “phenomenal consciousness,” or just consciousness, is not currently understood by scientists. Scientists do, of course, understand many of the contents of consciousness, such as mental processes like perceptions, thoughts,...
The Varieties of Spiritual Experience
October 15, 2022
David B. Yaden, Andrew B. Newberg
Abstract Where do spiritual experiences come from? There is, of course, a theological/philosophical level as well as a more practical level to this question. But as shown time and again in the preceding chapters of this book, the Jamesian approach of setting aside theological questions can be taken so as to instead focus on scientifically tractable subjects, such as the conditions that seem to...