---
title: "Mystical or religious experience"
chunk: 11/11
source: "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mystical_or_religious_experience"
category: "reference"
tags: "science, encyclopedia"
date_saved: "2026-05-05T04:31:59.266126+00:00"
instance: "kb-cron"
---

=== Psychology ===
Several psychologists have proposed models in which religious experiences are part of a process of transformation of the self.
Carl Jung's work on himself and his patients convinced him that life has a spiritual purpose beyond material goals. One's main task, he believed, is to discover and fulfil deep innate potential, much as the acorn contains the potential to become the oak, or the caterpillar to become the butterfly. Based on his study of Christianity, Hinduism, Buddhism, Gnosticism, Taoism, and other traditions, Jung perceived that this journey of transformation is at the mystical heart of all religions. It is a journey to meet the self and at the same time to meet the Divine. Unlike Sigmund Freud, Jung thought spiritual experience was essential to well-being.
The notion of the numinous was an important concept in the writings of Carl Jung. Jung regarded numinous experiences as fundamental to an understanding of the individuation process because of their association with experiences of synchronicity in which the presence of archetypes is felt.
McNamara proposes that religious experiences may help in "decentering" the self, and transform it into an integral self which is closer to an ideal self.
Transpersonal psychology is a school of psychology that studies the transpersonal, self-transcendent or spiritual aspects of the human experience. The Journal of Transpersonal Psychology describes transpersonal psychology as "the study of humanity’s highest potential, and with the recognition, understanding, and realization of unitive, spiritual, and transcendent states of consciousness". Issues considered in transpersonal psychology include spiritual self-development, peak experiences, mystical experiences, systemic trance and  other metaphysical experiences of living.

== See also ==

== Notes ==

== References ==

== Sources ==

=== Printed sources ===

Wright, Dale S. (2000), Philosophical Meditations on Zen Buddhism, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press
Om, Swami (2014), If Truth Be Told: A Monk's Memoir, Harper Collins
Yen, Chan Master Sheng (1996), Dharma Drum: The Life and Heart of Ch'an Practice, Boston & London: Shambhala
Zaehner, R. C. (1957), Mysticism Sacred and Profane: An Inquiry into some Varieties of Praeternatural Experience, Clarendon
Zaehner, R. C. (1974), Our Savage God: The Perverse Use of Eastern Thought, Sheed and Ward
Zimmer, Heinrich (1948), De weg tot het Zelf. Leer en leven van de Indische heilige, Sri Ramana Maharshi uit Tiruvannamalai, 's Graveland: Uitgeverij De Driehoek

=== Web sources ===

== Further reading ==
Batson, C. D., & Ventis, W. L. (1982). The religious experience: A social-psychological perspective. New York: Oxford University Press, ISBN 0-19-503030-3
Dein, Simon (2011), Religious experience: perspectives and research paradigms Archived 2016-03-05 at the Wayback Machine, WCPRR June 2011: 3–9
Giussani, Luigi (1997). The Religious Sense. Mcgill Queens Univ Press, ISBN 978-0773516267
James, William (1985) [1902]. The Varieties of Religious Experience. Harvard University Press. ISBN 9780674932258.
McNamara, Patrick, ed. (2006). Where God and Science Meet: How Brain and Evolutionary Studies Alter Our Understanding of Religion. 3 volumes. Westport, CT: Praeger.
McNamara, Patrick (2022). The Cognitive Neuroscience of Religious Experience: Decentering and the Self (2nd ed.). Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. doi:10.1017/9781108973496. ISBN 9781108833172. S2CID 249321868.
Richards, William A. (2016). Sacred Knowledge: Psychedelics and Religious Experiences. New York: Columbia University Press. ISBN 978-0-231-54091-9.
Taves, Ann (1999). Fits, Trances, and Visions: Experiencing Religion and Explaining Experience from Wesley to James. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press. ISBN 9780691010243.
Yaden, David B.; Newberg, Andrew B. (2022). The Varieties of Spiritual Experience: 21st Century Research and Perspectives. New York, NY: Oxford University Press. ISBN 9780190665678.

== External links ==
Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy, Mysticism
Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy, Religious Experience
"Self-transcendence enhanced by removal of portions of the parietal-occipital cortex" Article from the Institute for the Biocultural Study of Religion
Is This Your Brain On God? (May 2009 week long NPR series)
Institute for Mystical Experience and Education, including a Mystical Experience Questionnaire on mystical experiences
Australian Institute of Parapsychology, AIPR Information Sheet: Mystical Experiences
D. W. Shrader, Seven Characteristics of Mystical Experiences, personal account and theoretical exploration