Mystical and Religious Experiences Flashcards
Thorner (1966) - Definition of mystical experience
The person believes what they are seeing is extraordinary, more important than real perceptions, and unexplainable
Hay and Morisy (1978)
Out of 1865 respondents, 36.4% said they had experiences a mystical or religious experience.
24% of atheists studies said they had experiences a mystical experience.
William James - what causes mystical experiences?
- Ineffability – Incapable of being expressed through words
- Noetic Quality – Compelling sense the experience is real
- Passivity
- Transiency – Limited in duration
Walter T Stance cause of mystical experiences
- Unity (extrovertive or introvertive) – Sense of unity can either be ‘one with everyone’ or you lose a sense of self.
- Transcendence
- Noetic Quality
- Ineffability
- Positive affect
- Sacredness
- Paradoxicality
Qualitative questionnaire for mystical experiences
Hardy’s Questions
Quantitative questionnaires for mystical experiences
Mysticism Scale and Mystical Experience Questionnaire
What are Hardy’s Questions?
In Hardy’s questions, participants are asked to write a simple account of their feelings and effects.
Religious Experience Episode Measure (Hood, 1970; Rosegrant, 1976)
Based on William James’ accounts (ineffability, noetic quality, passivity and transiency). Participants rate similarity compared to their own experience (rating 1-9).
Mysticism Scale (Hood, 1975)
Based on Stave’s categories, questions answered in Likert scale.
This scale is related to intrinsic, openness to experience, REEM and hypernotisability.
Mystical Experience Questionnaire (Griffiths et al, 2016)
Also known as Pahnke-Richards MEQ.
43 items based on Stace’s categories and developed from those used in Pahnke’s experiment.
Used in research on psychedelic experience.
Triggers for Religious Experience
- Church attendance
- Significant life events
- Stress
- Aesthetic experiences
- Meditation and Prayer
- Sex
- Solitude
- Nature
- Drugs
Hood and Morris (1981)
Used a sensory deprivation tank to look into intrinsic and extrinsic religiosity and mystical experience. Religious figures were more likely to be generated by intrinsic religious people, even when asked to think about cartoon figures.
Entheogens definition
Neologism (new word) for “that which causes God to be within an individual”
Examples of entheogens
- LSD-25
- Psilocybin (Magic Mushrooms)
- Mescaline (Peyote Cactus)
- Cannabis
- Ayahuasca
Watts (1968) - causes of mystical experience
- Concentration in the present
- Awareness of Polarity
- Awareness of Relativity
- Awareness of Eternal Energy
Pahnke’s “Good Friday” Experiment (1962)
Wanted to evoke a mystical experience in a chapel using psychedelic drugs. Participants were students and the experiment was double blind drug-placebo (although we don’t know). They then attended Good Friday Mass.
God Encounter Experiences (Griffiths et al, 2019)
Non-drug versus drug condition
Striking similarities, regardless of condition
Non-drug = God, Drug = Higher Power, Ultimate reality
Half of the participants, regardless of condition, fulfilled criteria of a mystical experience.
More than 2/3rd of those who identified as atheist, no longer identified as this after the experience
Long lasting change in well-being and positive imagery.
Classic Hallucinogens and Mystical Experiences: Phenomenology and Neural Correlates (Barrett and Griffiths, 2018)
Review of the literature.
Experimental evidence of mystical experience using psilocybin.
Review of therapeutic interventions:
* Anxiety and depression
* Substance-dependence – alcohol/nicotine
Neural correlates
* Default Mode Network
