The Dimensions of Spirituality David Rousseau PhD

1. The Dimensions of SpiritualityDavid Rousseau PhD Centre for Systems Philosophy Centre for Spirituality Studies Centre for Systems Studies www.hull.ac.uk/fass www.systemsphilosophy.org www.hull.ac.uk/hubs Study Society 5 Jun 2013

2. 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%

3. Milestones in the scientific study of spirituality

4. 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

5. 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).

6. The Dimensions of Spirituality Objective Spirituality • 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 outcomes & behaviours

7. The Dimensions of Spirituality Objective Spirituality outcomes & 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 Spiritual Intelligence capacities & abilities

8. The Dimensions of Spirituality Objective Spirituality outcomes & behaviours Spiritual Intelligence 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

9. The Dimensions of Spirituality Objective Spirituality outcomes & behaviours Spiritual Intelligence capacities & abilities • 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) Subjective Spirituality goals & motivations Spiritual Worldview percepts, intuitions & beliefs

10. 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 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) Duty to me is as real as the physical world, though not apprehended in the same way. - Henry Sidgwick, Letter to Major Carey (1880)

11. The Dimensions of Spirituality Objective Spirituality outcomes & behaviours Spiritual Intelligence capacities & abilities Subjective Spirituality goals & motivations Spiritual Worldview percepts, intuitions & beliefs • Cultural conditioning? • Neurological effects? • God ? • ? ?? Ontology of Spirituality reality

12. Objective Spirituality outcomes & behaviours • 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 • forgiveness objective spirituality Spiritual Intelligence • 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 capacities & abilities spiritual intelligence Subjective Spirituality • 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 goals & motivations subjective spirituality • 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 percepts, intuitions & beliefs spiritual worldview ?? • Cultural conditioning? • Neurological effects? • God ? • ? Ontology of Spirituality reality ontology of spirituality

13. The Dimensions of Spirituality outcomes & behaviours capacities & abilities goals & motivations percepts, intuitions & beliefs reality Objective Spirituality 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 Spiritual Intelligence Subjective Spirituality Spiritual Worldview ?? Ontology of Spirituality

14. Dominant academic opinion is against authenticity… • Physicist Steven Weinberg, 1999: • The more the universe seems comprehensible, the more it seems pointless. • 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.’ • 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.

15. How do worldviews change? Experiences Cultural & Scientific Knowledge Intuitions

16. Spiritual 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)

17. 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)

18. Centre for Systems Philosophy THANK YOU Centre for Systems Philosophy David Rousseau www.systemsphilosophy.org david.rousseau@systemsphilosophy.org