#151 – Awe, and the religious/spiritual experience

Recovering Evangelicals

After a quick primer on this uniquely human phenomenon, we’ll hear from someone who had a profound, life-changing experience during a solar eclipse, and then relate all of this to religious/spiritual experiences.

Humans seem to be unique among all other species on Earth when it comes to the emotion of awe.

Whether it’s experienced while standing at the edge of the Grand Canyon, staring up at Niagara Falls from the bow of the Maid of the Mist, looking at Earth while doing a space-walk outside the International Space Station, or physically bumping into Taylor Swift getting out of her limo, awe evokes a physical response: you might gasp, start breathing faster, your heart races, you get goosebumps on your arms and the hairs on your neck start to rise. You’ll also experience cognitive changes: you suddenly feel small, or that your very being begins to dissolve …. you might suddenly feel more connected to humanity, to nature, to the universe … or to Deity.

Psychologists and anthropologists are now paying a lot more attention to the emotion of awe. It seems to be important to a greater sense of well-being. And it might be an important part of a spiritual/religious experience. Next week, we’re going to hear from an experimental psychologist and a theologian about that last point. But in this episode, we thought we should first give a bit of background on this uniquely human emotion (many animals seem to experience joy, rage, fear, sadness/grief, curiosity …. but not awe!?).

And we wanted to give you a prime example of a personally profound awe-experience. Before witnessing a solar eclipse a couple decades ago, David Makepeace really had no religious/spiritual inclinations whatsoever. After encountering one, though, his life was changed: his relationship with the universe became personal, and existentially compelling. He found a reason … a purpose … for his existence on this planet at this time. He now understood what Carl Sagan meant about humans being a way for the universe to know itself. And he now has a greater sense of happiness, fulfillment … even gratitude. My words won’t do justice to his story as he tells it: you need to hear it from him. And I guarantee you’ll find it provocative; it will definitely make you think. And ask questions.

One of the questions Scott and I asked ourselves was: how is David’s experience different from a typical spiritual/religious experience that one might have at a revivalist church meeting? There is so much overlap with respect to the physical, cognitive, and emotional responses. Both result in a complete reorientation of one’s place in “the big picture.” In fact, David’s enhanced sense of being a conduit for the consciousness of the universe sounds quite a bit like some newer forms of Christian theology — Open Theology and Process Theology — which claim that God experiences history and time along with us as life happens and we make choices (that he’s not omniscient).

Let us know what you think.

Find more information about David Makepeace, including contact info, upcoming appearances, and a number of “awesome” videos at his personal webpage and his business webpage.

If you enjoyed this episode, you may also like our previous episodes looking at the brain software that equips humans to having spiritual/religious experiences (episodes #43, #44, #45, and #78), or our episode on Open Theology and Process Theology.

Episode image by fe31lopz at Pixabay.

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