Auratic Response to a Virtual Church and Corresponding Physical Church
Ulrich Riegel, Mirjam Zimmermann
Frontline Learning Research June 19, 2026 DOI: 10.14786/flr.v13i4.1727 (opens in new tab)
Study at a glance
AI-extracted from the abstract| Characteristics | Experimental design with two points of measurement and two treatments Peer reviewed |
|---|---|
| Sample size | 52 |
| Population | Students of religious education |
| Intervention | physical church visit |
| Topics | Mysticism |
| Keywords | Operationalization Performative utterance Empirical research Cognition Experiential learning Virtual reality Control management Aesthetics Applied psychology Multimedia Cognitive psychology Mindset Pedagogy Physical education Virtual machine Sense of control Relation database |
| Key findings | Physical church visits stimulate a more pronounced auratic experience than virtual visits, and switching from virtual to physical exploration increases mystical experience while the reverse attenuates it. |
Abstract
There are empirical studies on both the cognitive and performative outcomes of learning via VR and the affective aspects of the use of VR in learning. Studies on affective outcomes in relation to the learning object, such as the attitude towards it or the atmospheric effect of a visited environment on the students, are still pending. This desideratum of educational research is addressed in this paper by comparing the auratic experience elicited by physical church visits with that elicited by virtual church visits via Head Monted Displays (HDMs). Therefore, the study applied an experimental design with two points of measurement and two treatments. Auratic experience was operationalized as both mystical experience and flow, while flow was structured according to the two dimensions of control and concentration. The participants were students of religious education (N = 52). In both virtual and physical exploration, there is hardly any mystical experience to be measured. However, it is the physical visit that stimulates a more pronounced experience than the virtual visit. However, the auratic experience in the given experiment is sensitive to the time of measurement: switching from virtual to physical exploration seems to stimulate an increase in the mystical experience, while switching from physical to virtual exploration somehow attenuates this experience. This result and the limitations of the study are discussed.
Comparable studies
Other experimental studies on mysticism, most cited first.
| Study | Year | Design | Participants |
|---|---|---|---|
| Validation of the revised Mystical Experience Questionnaire in experimental sessions with psilocybin Participants in controlled laboratory experiments receiving a moderate to high oral... | 2015 | Validation study using pooled data from five laboratory experiments | n = 184 |
| Alterations of consciousness and mystical-type experiences after acute LSD in humans Participants in a study on acute LSD effects | 2016 | Experimental study | |
| High dose psilocybin is associated with positive subjective effects in healthy volunteers Healthy participants | 2018 | Within-subjects dose-escalation study | n = 12 |
| Mystical Experience in the Lab | 2014 | Experimental study | |
| An exploratory study of breathwork-induced altered states of consciousness in experienced practitioners: the airways to alteration (A2A) trial Healthy adults | 2026 | Preliminary experimental study | n = 24 |