The Dimensions of Spirituality David Rousseau PhD

The Dimensions of Spirituality

David Rousseau David Rousseau PhDPhD

Study Society 5 Jun 2013Study Society 5 Jun 2013

Centre for Systems Studies

www.hull.ac.uk/hubswww.hull.ac.uk/fass

Centre for Spirituality Studies

www.systemsphilosophy.org

Centre for Systems

Philosophy

Spirituality vs. Religion

Spirituality is the personal quest for understanding answers to ultimate questions about life, about meaning, and about relationship to the sacred or transcendent, which may (or may not) lead to or arise from the development of religious rituals and the formation of community

Religion is an organized system of beliefs, practices, rituals, and symbols designed (a) to facilitate closeness to the sacred or transcendent (God, higher power, or ultimate truth/reality) and (b) to foster an understanding of one's relationship and responsibility to others in living together in a community.

-Koenig et al., The Handbook of Religion and Health (2001)

•Spiritual: 92-97%

•Spiritual Experiences : 45-75%

•Religious: 50-70%

•Church attendance : 8.5-20%

Milestones in the scientific study of spiritualityMilestones in the scientific study of spirituality

• 1859 Charles Darwin The Origin of Species

• 1882 Henry Sidgwick Society for Psychical Research

• 1902 William James The Varieties of Religious Experience

• 1976 Ninian Smart Department of Religious Studies, Univ. of Lancaster

• 1975 Raymond Moody Life after Life

• 1997 Harold Koenig Center for the Study of Religion, Spirituality, and Health, Duke Univ

• 2008 Margaret Holloway

The Centre for Spirituality Studies, Univ. of Hull

“spiritual” 1970-79 1980-1989 1990-1999 2000-2009

MedLine 0 1 31 3947

PsychInfo 5 248 1625 7985

PhilPapers 48 88 244 779

Rise of academic research into spirituality

The Center for Spirituality, Theology and Health Duke University The Center for Spirituality and Health University of Florida The Dalai Lama Center for Ethics and Transformative Values MIT The Centre for Spirituality Studies University of Hull The Spirituality, Religion and Personal Beliefs Group WHO-QoL

Modern academic views on spirituality

the belief that there is an unseen [moral] order, and that our supreme good lies in harmoniously adjusting ourselves thereto (James, 1902, p. 53)

the personal quest for understanding answers to ultimate questions about life (Koenig et al., 2001, p. 18)

the need for achieving transcendent meaning in life (Hill & Pargament, 2003, p. 65)

the capacity to be virtuous (show forgiveness, compassion etc) (Emmons 1999 p.163 )

following a practice aimed at cultivating awareness of the sacredness of certain things (Stone, 2012, p. 493)

ability to use spiritual resources for problem solving (Emmons 1999 p.163)

the experience of cultural pleasures such as listening to classical music or learning theorems or admiring architecture (Bunge, 2010, pp. 95–96)

the experience of material pleasures such as luxurious living (Solomon, 2006)

having experiences perceived as of overriding personal significance (such as signs of maturity in one’s children) (Stone, 2012, p. 493).

• welfare outcomes:• better mental and physical health• better coping with adversity• higher perceived quality of life• better social welfare outcomes

• virtuous behaviour• patience• charity• tolerance• community spirit• friendliness

Objective Spiritualityoutcomes & behaviours


• capacity be or act virtuously (forgiveness, compassion, gratitude, etc)

• capacity to experience higher states of consciousness

• ability to use spiritual resources for problem solving

• ability to invest the everyday with sense of the divine or sacred

• capacity to transcend the physical and material

Objective Spirituality

Spiritual Intelligence

outcomes & behaviours

capacities & abilities


• the personal search for answers to ultimate questions about life

• search for meaning

• search for connections that have ultimate value

• experienced relationship to the sacred or transcendent



Subjective Spirituality



goals & motivations


• the intuitive conviction that:

• existence has meaning and value

• life has an ‘ultimate’ purpose

• we are genuine contributors to how this ‘drama’ unfolds

• there are some absolute values (goodness, evil, sacredness, duty)

• we are responsible for our choices (free will)

• we are responsible for our actions (authentic agents)




Spiritual Worldview



goals & motivations

percepts, intuitions &

beliefs


Spiritual Intuitions

“There really is, as everyone to some extent divines, a natural justice and injustice that is binding on all men, even on those who have no association or covenant with each other"

– Aristotle, Rhetoric 1.13.1373b5

Duty to me is as real as the physical world, though not apprehended in the same way.

- Henry Sidgwick, Letter to Major Carey (1880)

Two things fill the mind with ever new and increasing admiration and awe … the starry heaven above me and the moral law within me. Neither of them need I seek and merely suspect as if shrouded in obscurity … I see them before me and connect them immediately with my existence.

- Immanuel Kant, Critique of Practical Reason (1788)

• Cultural conditioning?• Neurological effects?• God ?• ?

??




Spiritual Worldview

Ontology of Spirituality



goals & motivations


beliefs

reality



goals & motivations


beliefs

reality


??

• capacity be or act virtuously (forgiveness, compassion, gratitude, etc)• capacity to experience higher states of consciousness• ability to use spiritual resources for problem solving• ability to invest the everyday with sense of the divine or sacred • capacity to transcend the physical and material

• the personal search for answers to ultimate questions about life• search for meaning• search for connections that have ultimate value • experienced relationship to the sacred or transcendent

• the intuitive conviction that:• existence has meaning and value• life has an ‘ultimate’ purpose• we are genuine contributors to how this ‘drama’ unfolds• there are some absolute values (goodness, evil, sacredness, duty)• we are responsible for our choices (free will)• we are responsible for our actions (authentic agents)

• Cultural conditioning?• Neurological effects?• God ?• ?

• virtuous behaviour:• patience• charity• tolerance• community spirit• forgiveness

• welfare outcomes:• better mental and physical health• better coping with adversity• higher perceived quality of life• better social welfare outcomes




Spiritual Worldview


??




Spiritual Worldview




goals & motivations


beliefs

reality

Healthcare

Sociology

Behavioural Psychology

Cognitive Psychology

Developmental Psychology

Motivational Psychology

Transpersonal Psychology

Philosophy of Values (Axiology)

Philosophy of Action (Praxiology)

Philosophy of Religion

Religious Experience Studies


Dominant academic opinion is against authenticity…

Biologist Francis Crick, 1994:

‘You’, your joys and your sorrows, your memories and your ambitions, your sense of personal identity and free will, are in fact no more than the behavior of a vast assembly of nerve cells, and their associated molecules. As Lewis Carroll's Alice might have phrased it: ‘You're nothing but a pack of neurons.’

Physicist Steven Weinberg, 1999:

The more the universe seems comprehensible, the more it seems pointless.

Religious Studies Scholar Robert Scharf, 2000:

…mystical experience is wholly shaped by a mystic’s cultural environment, personal history, doctrinal commitments, religious training, expectations, aspirations, and so on.

How do worldviews change?

Intuitions

Experiences

Cultural &Scientific Knowledge

Type of Experience (British population) 1987 2000 % increase

Experience of a transcendent providence in pattern of events 29% 55% 90%

Awareness of a divine presence 27% 38% 41%

Having a prayer answered 25% 37% 48%

Awareness of a sacred presence in nature 16% 29% 81%

Awareness of the presence of a deceased person 18% 25% 39%

Awareness of an evil presence 12% 25% 108%

Any of the spiritual experiences listed above 48% 76% 58%

Spiritual ExperiencesSpiritual Experiences

Sources: (Hay & Heald, 1987; Hay & Hunt, 2000)

* International surveys give similar results

* Over this time, UK church attendance fell by 17% from 10.2% to 8.5% (Brierly, 2005)

Scientific Evidence

Unconditioned moral intuitions• Adults have cross-culturally consistent moral intuitions in unfamiliar scenarios (Pyysiäinen &

Hauser, 2010) • Pre-verbal children have a sense of right and wrong (Bloom, 2010; Hamlin et al., 2007)

Altruism and pro-social behaviour in animals• Lab research: empathy in rats (Bartal et al., 2011)• Field research (Trivers, 1971 ; Wilson 1975, 2000)

Direct experiences of Nature as having spiritual aspects (Marshall 2005)

Causal powers of a spiritual kind• Long term meditators affect other people’s axiological behaviour simply by their presence

(Ekman, 2008; Goleman, 2005; Orme-Johnson & Oates, 2009)• Transformative effects of encounters with ‘spiritual light phenomena’ (Fox, 2008)

Experiences of beings and phenomena with inherent axiological characteristics• Direct apprehension of axiological qualities in people (Lawson 2011)• Direct apprehension of axiological qualities in visions, presences, ELEs and NDEs (Fenwick

& Brayne, 2011; Fox, 2008; Kapstein, 2004; Marshall, 2005; Wiebe, 2004, Rousseau 2011, Huffod 1983, 2012)

THANK YOU

David Rousseau

www.systemsphilosophy.org

[email protected]

Centre for Systems

Philosophy

The Dimensions of Spirituality David Rousseau PhD

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