2

Defining Our Terms

Having already introduced words such as consciousness, spiritual, religion, and so forth, I believe it is important at this early juncture to address their definitions because many discussions of spiritual experiences quickly lose focus due to disagreements regarding what we are in fact talking about. To assist me in this task, I reached for my dictionary early in this project.*13

CONSCIOUSNESS

General Definition

Consciousness is the aggregate of the contents and processes of mental function, such as perception, mood, and thinking. It also refers to that which is aware of some object, impression, state, or influence. Thus awareness is a common synonym for consciousness. The dictionary distinguishes between the two terms by suggesting that awareness attends to something outside of oneself, whereas consciousness attends to the inner working of one’s own mind.

Altered States of Consciousness

An altered state of consciousness is a condition in which one or more of the functions or properties of consciousness, such as perception or sense of bodily integrity, differs from those that constitute “normal” consciousness. This baseline reference state is awake and alert, the “normal waking state,” and allows us to know where we are, when our experience is taking place, and the difference between our self and someone or something else. Examples of common altered states of consciousness are anesthesia, dreaming sleep, and alcohol intoxication.1

SPIRITUAL

The definition for spiritual encompasses a somewhat broader spectrum than that of consciousness. Spiritual refers to anything, including thoughts, feelings, or images, possessing the highest qualities of the human mind. Related terms are holy, sacred, religious, and pure. These words allude to the difference between the spiritual and the everyday, bestial, or carnal. Spiritual may also refer to things that are incorporeal, immaterial, or invisible. Those with a theological bent would include more specifically the immaterial nature of humans; that is, their soul or spirit. And even more specifically, spiritual may concern God, God’s spirit or word, or the soul upon which God acts.

RELIGION

The broadest definition of a religion is any system of faith, worship, beliefs, or practices that expresses the relationship between the spiritual nature of humans and the spiritual world. This relationship consists of a sense of dependence and responsibility, as well as the feelings, ideas, and practices naturally flowing from those religious beliefs. A particular religion may be a vessel for containing or channeling spiritual thoughts, feelings, imagery, and impulses. However, spirituality can exist outside the boundaries of religious institutions. This latter notion is usually what people mean when they say that they are “spiritual but not religious.”

THEOLOGY

Theology is the study of religion whose object is to synthesize a philosophy of religion. In a monotheistic context, it is a set of doctrines concerning God, God’s intermediaries, characteristics, and actions.

METAPHYSICS

I like to define metaphysics as the “science of the invisible,” although this is rather idiosyncratic. A more formal definition is the science of first principles of being and knowledge, or speculative philosophy in the widest sense. When set into a religious context, it shares many features with theology.

SPIRITUAL EXPERIENCES AND THEIR TYPES

Taking into account these definitions of consciousness, spiritual, and religion, we have the necessary components with which to construct a definition of spiritual experience. It is an altered state of consciousness with unique spiritual characteristics. These characteristics include a sense of the state being unusual, rare, and valuable. It consists of images, thoughts, and feelings that one considers spiritual, undeniably distinct from everyday life.2

A religious experience is a type of spiritual experience occurring within the context of a religion. It partakes of imagery, vocabulary, and concepts consistent with that tradition.

A mystical experience is a spiritual experience that possesses certain subjective features. It may occur within or outside of a religious tradition. For the purposes of this book, I specify that it lacks imagery, concepts, and verbal content. In addition, one’s sense of self merges, unites, or “becomes one” with something “other.” That “other” is a spiritual thing such as God or the spiritual essence of a natural or other phenomenon, like a beautiful landscape or music.

Recognizing the unitive, or merging, characteristics of the mystical experience allows us to consider “non-mystical” spiritual states, what I call interactive-relational ones. The characteristics of the interactive-relational type include the maintenance of a sense of self, which allows one to distinguish and interact willfully with the contents of the experience, its images, ideas, and voices.

I make the distinction between mystical-unitive and interactive-relational types of spiritual states frequently throughout this book because much of contemporary medical research in the field of spirituality takes as its default type the mystical-unitive, rather than the interactive-relational.3 As will become readily apparent, the prophetic state is interactive and relational, never mystical nor unitive.

Finally, a near-death experience is a spiritual experience occurring when one is nearly dead. It may be mystical-unitive, interactive-relational, or both, and it may or may not contain a specific religion’s themes.

ETHICS AND MORALITY

In this book, I raise the importance of the practical relevance of spiritual experiences, both prophetic and psychedelic. One way we might address this issue concerns changes in behavior and attitudes, the purview of ethics and morality.

These two terms, ethics and morality, usually occur together, and I follow this convention to a large extent. Both refer to human character and behavior, especially with respect to principles of right and wrong. While it is difficult to draw a clear line between the two words, morality tends toward more personal and spiritual standards, whereas ethics refers to a social code of behavior. For example, there is a code of ethics for physicians and attorneys, but not a code of morals. Morals, in this case, would refer to the guidelines for behavior and attitude that the individual attorney or physician would use to regulate his or her decisions at the personal, rather than professional, level. We might consider ethics as an individual or communal application of morality.