Awe

This experience of mystical awe: This we learn from Jess Bryon Hollenbeck’s book Mysticism: Experiences, Responses, and Empowerment, in her tour of the place of mystical awe in the religions of the world that emerged some 2,500 years ago, and the cultural and spiritual traditions of the diverse Indigenous societies in North and South America that are 10,000 years old, or older. Hollenbeck, Jess Bryon. Mysticism: Experiences, Responses, and Empowerment. University Park, PA: Penn State University Press, 1996.

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soul in terms of patterns:

Halpern, Paul. Synchronicity: The Epic Quest to Understand the Quantum Nature of Cause and Effect. New York: Basic Books, 2020.

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Extraordinary experiences: In 1996, social psychologist Paul Rozin published a generative paper that anticipated this thinking. He drew upon an idea found in evolutionary thinking, that of preadaptation: that evolved forms like emotions are put to new uses to meet the ever-changing contexts of our complex social lives. The world’s expert on disgust, Rozin applied this thinking to the ways in which culture elaborates upon elements of “core disgust” into new moral and religious forms. Core disgust, or distaste, evolved to ensure that we avoid ingesting toxic substances. We recoil at noxious smells and tastes of rotten food, and expel the substance from our mouths and stomachs. This core structure of distaste, in Rozin’s thinking, is preadapted to extend to, or elaborate into, moral disgust. Our perceptions that trigger distaste, of what is toxic and fetid, feed into representations of moral disgust of a religious or moral quality—sins of the body, dirty minds, the filthy rich, wretches to be saved, rotten character. The primal urge of core distaste to expel, clean, and purify ritualizes into, for example, purification practices, such as bathing in rivers in India during religious festivals, washing the hands and mouth prior to entering temples in Japan, and baptisms in the United States. Rozin, Paul. “Towards a Psychology of Food and Eating: From Motivation to Model to Meaning, Morality and Metaphor.” Current Directions in Psychological Science 5 (1996): 18–24.

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Out of mystical awe

: Another example of moral emotions being put to religious and spiritual uses is found in Karen Armstrong’s sweeping history of the emergence of many religions during the Axial Age, some 2,500 years ago. In her book The Great Transformation, Armstrong argues that throughout the Middle East, the Mediterranean, and Asia, with an increase of commerce and trade, traditional communities were breaking down. There was a an increase in violence. In response to these challenges, people began to write down their core beliefs and engage in rituals and practices together, in founding Judaism, Christianity, Hinduism, Buddhism, Taoism, Confucianism, and classical Greek thought. Armstrong identifies how compassion, empathy, attending to suffering, forgiveness, and gratitude—all emotional processes shaped by our hypersocial evolution—are central to the emergence of these religious traditions. Armstrong, Karen. The Great Transformation: The Beginning of Our Religious Traditions. New York: Anchor Books, 2007.

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near-death experiences: Holden, Janice M., Bruce Greyson, and Debbie James. The Handbook of Near-Death Experiences: Thirty Years of Investigation

. Santa Barbara, CA: Praeger, 2009.

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bodily feeling of the Divine: Krishna, Gopi. Living with Kundalini: The Autobiography of Gopi Krishna. Edited by Leslie Shepard. Boston and London: Shambhala, 1993, 3.

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Such rituals bring about:

Casper ter Kuile, a graduate of Harvard Divinity School, believes we can find mystical awe by returning to ritual. In his wonderful book The Power of Ritual, ter Kuile composts religious traditions and finds these pathways to mystical awe:

Read sacred texts.

Create sabbaths in your life, from work, technology, social life.

Find opportunities for what one might call prayer—mindful quiet forms of reflecting.

Eat with others.

Walk in nature.

ter Kuile, Casper. The Power of Ritual: How to Create Meaning and Connection in Everything You Do. New York: Harper One, 2020.