23 Jun The Best Experience You’ve Ever Had
You’ve hiked to the top of the hill, and the vista spread out before you is breathtaking. Full of endorphins, you’re overcome with a speechless appreciation of beauty. You suddenly know without a doubt that all is right with the world and your place in it, and you’re in touch with a magnificence way beyond your finite self. The moment changes you forever. Some people call this an experience of God; transpersonal psychologists call it a Peak Experience.
According to research conducted by Robert Wuthnow in the 1970s, 84% of the 1,000 people interviewed responded affirmatively to the questions: “have you ever had the feeling that you were in close contact with something holy or sacred?” or “have you experienced the beauty of nature in a deeply moving way?” or “have you had the feeling that you were in harmony with the universe?” We can thus assume that most people we meet are familiar with an intense, emotional experience that put them in touch with something greater than themselves, was hard to put into words, and has had a profound effect on their life.
Peak experiences can come from a deep experience of nature as above, or through drugs, sex, meditation, or even when we are turned on by learning, as Gad Yair from Hebrew University found out in research in 2009, in “singular, short and intense educational encounters that proved to have strong and long lasting results.”
Earlier cultures understood the transformative possibilities of peak experiences and developed technologies to produce them: ecstatic practices such as drumming, dance, prayer, singing, ritual, drugs, Sufi whirling. Many of these techniques were introduced into mainstream Western culture in the latter part of the last millennium. Although he is most known as a an avid proponent of LSD, Dr. Timothy Leary importantly theorized that since a peak experience by its very definition changes us, in those peak moments we can change our conditioning to see the world in a more useful way. Group and individual psychotherapies have since been developed to facilitate the purposeful change of worldview of suffering people, especially addicts and those with PTSD.
Once you’ve had a peak (also referred to as transcendent, or spiritual) experience, you never view mainstream reality in the same way again. You’ve had a taste that more is available than you’ve been taught. Peak experiences are so full of promise, so enticing, that once you’ve had one, your whole life may become trying to experience it again. However one comes, whether spontaneously or induced, a peak experience is always a great teacher and a boundless blessing.
© 2014 Catherine Auman This article is an excerpt from Catherine’s book Shortcuts to Mindfulness: 100 Ways to Personal and Spiritual Growth
Sorry, the comment form is closed at this time.