A
major philospher and friend of Brut Russell, Loren, makes these
comments on the comment section in response to "Meaning and Truth."
Shouting
"It's not a hallucination! It's not a hallucination! It's not a
hallucination!" is a very bad argument, as is your waving away the
serious epistemological problem that Bertrand Russell, Mark Vuletic, and
I have tried to consider.
And becoming happy by
believing something in no way indicates its truth. You could become very
happy by believing that none of your miseries are any of your fault,
blaming many of them on various conspiracies, but would your happiness
indicate your faultlessness?
This
is a hackney tactic of trying to hide the phenomena by re describing in
ways the obscure what's important about it. I say RE results in "life
transformation" she purposely reduces this to "getting happy" becasue
the atheist can't face the facts or the truth that hundreds of studies
demonstrate the superior nature of religious life. What I'm
talking about is mystical experience, not getting happy. You can get
happy when you have a bowl of soup and good sandwich. I'm talking about
something that totally changes your live, removes your fear of death,
increases your socio us consciousness, makes you into a totally giving
person, can cure you of heroin and other drugs (14%) gives your life
meaning so that you feel its totally worthwhile to live. I know many
atheists wallow in despair you know I'm right. not all of them, course
not. But many do. studies prove that religous people have less mental
illness, less depression, better sense of self actualization.
she
wants to reduce this "getting happy" because it's the only thing she
can say. She does not have one single counter study. not one single
study shows different.
Religious experience indicative of good mental health
The
“new atheists” put forth the notion that all of religion itself is a
form of mental illness. This is the impression many love to cultivate.
There is no basis for it in the data whatsoever. The effects are varied
but over the entire range of research they spell out a healthy
well-adjusted whole person. The qualities mentioned in the research over
and over again include: less dogmatic, less authoritarian, more
socially conscious, are about people, happy, healthy, successful, self
aware, self assured, find life meaningful, enjoy their work, strong ego,
strong sense of self, more self actualized. All the studies mentioned
to this point back this up. Mathes, Maslow, Wuthnow, Greely, Luckoff and
Lue, Noble, Hood and all others mentioned. I will include a list at the
end of this chapter, and a select bibliography in the indices
cataloguing the studies that find mystical experience to have long-term
positive effects. These are the characteristics of self-actualization.
Religious People are More Self Actualized
This
is the finding of a vast body of work. Some studies show that “Peakers”
(those who experience “mystical experiences” what I’m calling “RE” in
this essay) are more self actualized than those who do not have these
experiences. But there are also studies that show that any inkling of
religious experience carried some degree of the same advantages. Four
hundred studies show that participation (as well as the nominal
experiences) produces many benefits, among them less depression and
better mental health.
Dr. Michael Nielson, Ph.D.
"What
makes someone psychologically healthy? This was the question that
guided Maslow's work. He saw too much emphasis in psychology on negative
behavior and thought, and wanted to supplant it with a psychology of
mental health. To this end, he developed a hierarchy of needs, ranging
from lower level physiological needs, through love and belonging, to
self- actualization. Self-actualized people are those who have reached
their potential for self-development. Maslow claimed that mystics are
more likely to be self-actualized than are other people. Mystics also
are more likely to have had "peak experiences," experiences in which the
person feels a sense of ecstasy and oneness with the universe. Although
his hierarchy of needs sounds appealing, researchers have had
difficulty finding support for his theory."
We turn once again to Jayne Gackenback
In
terms of psychological correlates, well-being and happiness has been
associated with mystical experiences,(Mathes, Zevon, Roter, Joerger,
1982; Hay & Morisy, 1978; Greeley, 1975; Alexander, Boyer,
& Alexander, 1987) as well as self-actualization (Hood, 1977;
Alexander, 1992). Regarding the latter, the developer of
self-actualization believed that even one spontaneous peak or
transcendental experience could promote self-actualization.
Correlational research has supported this relationship. In a recent
statistical meta-analysis of causal designs with Transcendental
Meditation (TM) controlling for length of treatment and strength of
study design, it was found that: TM enhances self-actualization on
standard inventories significantly more than recent clinically devised
relaxation/meditation procedures not explicitly directed toward
transcendence [mystical experience] (p. 1; Alexander, 1992)
Believers: less depression, mental illness, Divorce rate, ect.
The study by Gartner and Allen indicates that religious belief is associated with good mental health, less depression and so on:
"The
Reviews identified 10 areas of clinical status in which research has
demonstrated benefits of religious commitment: (1) Depression, (2)
Suicide, (3) Delinquency, (4) Mortality, (5) Alcohol use (6) Drug use,
(7) Well-being, (8) Divorce and marital satisfaction, (9) Physical
Health Status, and (10) Mental health outcome studies...The authors
underscored the need for additional longitudinal studies featuring
health outcomes. Although there were few, such studies tended to show
mental health benefit. Similarly, in the case of the few longevity or
mortality outcome studies, the benefit was in favor of those who
attended church...at least 70% of the time, increased religious
commitment was associated with improved coping and protection from
problems."
This was based upon
a review of social science studies. These were regular projects by
social scientists published in the scholarly literature. All the
researchers did was to read the literature and report the finds of these
studies. In the past psychiatry has tended to assume what Freud
assumed, that religion is pathology. This is no longer the case. The
basic assumption in the mental health field today is that religion is
positive, healthy, and a sign of functionality.
Long-Term Positive Effects of Mystical Experience
Research Summary
From Council on Spiritual Practices Website
"States of Univtive Consciousness"
Also
called Transcendent Experiences, Ego-Transcendence, Intense Religious
Experience, Peak Experiences, Mystical Experiences, Cosmic
Consciousness. Sources:
Wuthnow, Robert (1978). "Peak Experiences: Some Empirical Tests." Journal of Humanistic Psychology, 18 (3), 59-75.
Noble,
Kathleen D. (1987). ``Psychological Health and the Experience of
Transcendence.'' The Counseling Psychologist, 15 (4), 601-614.
Lukoff,
David & Francis G. Lu (1988). ``Transpersonal psychology
research review: Topic: Mystical experiences.'' Journal of Transpersonal
Psychology, 20 (2), 161-184.
Roger Walsh (1980). The
consciousness disciplines and the behavioral sciences: Questions of
comparison and assessment. American Journal of Psychiatry, 137(6),
663-673.
Lester Grinspoon and James Bakalar (1983).
``Psychedelic Drugs in Psychiatry'' in Psychedelic Drugs Reconsidered,
New York: Basic Books.
Furthermore, Greeley found no
evidence to support the orthodox belief that frequent mystic experiences
or psychic experiences stem from deprivation or psychopathology. His
''mystics'' were generally better educated, more successful
economically, and less racist, and they were rated substantially happier
on measures of psychological well-being. (Charles T. Tart, Psi:
Scientific Studies of the Psychic Realm, p. 19.)
Long-Term Positive Effects
Wuthnow:
*Say their lives are more meaningful,
*think about meaning and purpose
*Know what purpose of life is
Meditate more
*Score higher on self-rated personal talents and capabilities
*Less likely to value material possessions, high pay, job security, fame, and having lots of friends
*Greater value on work for social change, solving social problems, helping needy
*Reflective, inner-directed, self-aware, self-confident life style
Noble:
*Experience more productive of psychological health than illness
*Less authoritarian and dogmatic
*More assertive, imaginative, self-sufficient
*intelligent, relaxed
*High ego strength,
*relationships, symbolization, values,
*integration, allocentrism,
*psychological maturity,
*self-acceptance, self-worth,
*autonomy, authenticity, need for solitude,
*increased love and compassion
Short-Term Effects (usually people who did not previously know of these experiences)
*Experience temporarily disorienting, alarming, disruptive
*Likely changes in self and the world,
*space
and time, emotional attitudes, cognitive styles, personalities, doubt
sanity and reluctance to communicate, feel ordinary language is
inadequate
*Some individuals report psychic capacities
and visionary experience destabilizing relationships with family and
friends Withdrawal, isolation, confusion, insecurity, self-doubt,
depression, anxiety, panic, restlessness, grandiose religious delusions
Links
to Maslow's Needs, Mental Health, and Peak Experiences When introducing
entheogens to people, I find it's helpful to link them to other ideas
people are familiar with. Here are three useful quotations. 1) Maslow -
Beyond Self Actualization is Self Transcendence ``I should say that I
consider Humanistic, Third Force Psychology to be transitional, a
preparation for a still `higher' Fourth Psychology, transhuman, centered
in the cosmos rather than in human needs and interest, going beyond
humanness, identity, selfactualization and the like.''
Abraham Maslow (1968). Toward a Psychology of Being, Second edition, -- pages iii-iv.
Studies
dealing with mystical experience (Peak experience or “RE”) itself also
find that this kind of experience is also a major factor in well-being.
Greely in 74, Hay and Morisy (1978) “people who reported having intense
religious experiences were significantly more likely to report a high
level of psychological well being than those who did not experience
transcendence. Greely’s ‘mystics’ were also more likely to be
optimistic than were his “non mystics” and less likely to be
authoritarian or racist.” “Transcendent experience may well lead toward
a permanent transformation of the psyche in the direction of wholeness
and health, Maslow (1970) Owens (1972) Wapnick (1972).
2) States of consciousness and mystical experiences
The ego has problems:
the ego is a problem.
``Within
the Western model we recognize and define psychosis as a suboptimal
state of consciousness that views reality in a distorted way and does
not recognize that distortion. It is therefore important to note that
from the mystical perspective our usual state fits all the criteria of
psychosis, being suboptimal, having a distorted view of reality, yet not
recognizing that distortion. Indeed from the ultimate mystical
perspective, psychosis can be defined as being trapped in, or attached
to, any one state of consciousness, each of which by itself is
necessarily limited and only relatively real.'' -- page 665
Roger
Walsh (1980). The consciousness disciplines and the behavioral
sciences: Questions of comparison and assessment. American Journal of
Psychiatry, 137(6), 663-673.
3) Therapeutic effects of peak experiences
``It
is assumed that if, as is often said, one traumatic event can shape a
life, one therapeutic event can reshape it. Psychedelic therapy has an
analogue in Abraham Maslow's idea of the peak experience. The drug taker
feels somehow allied to or merged with a higher power; he becomes
convinced the self is part of a much larger pattern, and the sense of
cleansing, release, and joy makes old woes seem trivial.'' -- page 132
Lester
Grinspoon and James Bakalar (1983). ``Psychedelic Drugs in Psychiatry''
in Psychedelic Drugs Reconsidered, New York: Basic Books.
Transpersonal
Childhood Experiences of Higher States of Consciousness: Literature
Review and Theoretical Integration. Unpublished paper by Jayne
Gackenback, (1992)
http://www.sawka.com/spiritwatch/cehsc/ipure.htm
"These
states of being also result in behavioral and health changes. Ludwig
(1985) found that 14% of people claiming spontaneous remission from
alcoholism was due to mystical experiences while Richards (1978) found
with cancer patients treated in a hallucinogenic drug-assisted therapy
who reported mystical experiences improved significantly more on a
measure of self-actualization than those who also had the drug but did
not have a mystical experience. In terms of the Vedic Psychology group
they report a wide range of positive behavioral results from the
practice of meditation and as outlined above go to great pains to show
that it is the transcendence aspect of that practice that is primarily
responsible for the changes. Thus improved performance in many areas of
society have been reported including education and business as well as
personal health states (reviewed and summarized in Alexander et al.,
1990). Specifically, the Vedic Psychology group found that mystical
experiences were associated with "refined sensory threshold and enhanced
mind-body coordination (p. 115; Alexander et al., 1987)."
Studies
have shown that religious satisfaction was the most powerful predictor
of general happiness and acceptance of life. Prayer was also an
important contributing factor. “As a result of their study the authors
concluded that it would be important to look at a combination of
religious items, including prayer, relationship with God, and other
measures of religious experience to begin to adequately clarify the
associations of religious commitment with general well-being."
Studies on religious participation
Psychiatrists assume religious experience Normative.
Dr. Jorge W.F. Amaro, Ph.D., Head psychology dept. Sao Paulo says that the unbeliever is the Sick Soul:
"A
non spiritualized person is a sick person, even if she doesn't show any
symptom described by traditional medicine. The supernatural and the
sacredness result from an elaboration on the function of omnipotence by
the mind and can be found both in atheist and religious people. It is an
existential function in humankind and the uses each one makes of it
will be the measure for one's understanding…." "Nowadays there are many
who do not agree with the notion that religious behavior a priori
implies a neurotic state to be decoded and eliminated by analysis
(exorcism). That reductionism based on the first works by Freud is
currently under review. The psychotherapist should be limited to
observing the uses their clients make of the representations of the
image of God in their subjective world, that is, the uses of the
function of omnipotence. Among the several authors that subscribe to
this position are Odilon de Mello Franco (12).... W. R. Bion (2), one of
the most notable contemporary psychoanalysts,"
This
relationship is so strong it led to the creation of a whole discipline
in psychology; transactional psychology. The Transactional school is
based upon the work of Abraham Maslow, who was the first modern
researcher (since William James at the turn of the ninetieth into the
twentieth century) to subject the outcomes of religious experience to
modern social sciences research methods (late 60s to early 80s).
Professor Neilson again:
"One outgrowth of
Maslow's work is what has become known as Transpersonal Psychology, in
which the focus is on the spiritual well-being of individuals, and
values are advocated steadfastly. Transpersonal psychologists seek to
blend Eastern religion (Buddhism, Hinduism, etc.) or Western (Christian,
Jewish or Moslem) mysticism with a form of modern psychology.
Frequently, the transpersonal psychologist rejects psychology's adoption
of various scientific methods used in the natural sciences."
"The
influence of the transpersonal movement remains small, but there is
evidence that it is growing. I suspect that most psychologists would
agree with Maslow that much of psychology -- including the psychology of
religion -- needs an improved theoretical foundation."
There
is a vast array of studies on other areas besides RE, studies that
demonstrate the validity and advantage of participation in a religious
tradition, or religious belief. This is not best evidence for the
arguments because its not so much the trace of the divine as it effects
and affects human life, but is a demonstration of the advantages of a
belief. Nevertheless, because there is a link between belief,
participation, and experience, especially if Maslow et al are right that
we all experience God to some degree, we can assume that participation
is a response to some degree of experience. So these studies are
important for the religious a priori argument, and they serve as
secondary back up for the co-determinate and Thomas Reid arguments.
Religion is positive factor in physical health.
Many
studies confirm that religion is a powerful force in physical health.
This is important because it seems that we are constructed as organisms
to be religious. Religion seems good for us on many levels. I resist the
urge to make a design argument, tempting though it is. Yet, the point
is that religious experience is as trust worth as other forms of
experience, in a general sense. One indication of that trustworthy
nature is its healthy effect upon our bodies. Much has been said in the
popular mainstream press, such as this Knight Ridder news release of
1998.
"Some suspect
that the benefits of faith and churchgoing largely boil down to having
social support � a factor that, by itself, has been shown to improve
health. But the health effects of religion can't wholly be explained by
social support. If, for example, you compare people who aren't religious
with people who gather regularly for more secular reasons, the
religious group is healthier. In Israel, studies comparing religious
with secular kibbutzim showed the religious communes were healthier."Is
this all a social effect you could get from going to the bridge club? It
doesn't seem that way," said Koenig, who directs Duke's Center for the
Study of Religion/Spirituality and Health.Another popular explanation
for the link between religion and health is sin avoidance."
"The
religious might be healthier because they are less likely to smoke,
drink and engage in risky sex and more likely to wear seat belts. But
when studies control for those factors, say by comparing religious
nonsmokers with nonreligious nonsmokers, the religious factors still
stand out. Compare smokers who are religious with those who are not and
the churchgoing smokers have blood pressure as low as nonsmokers. "If
you're a smoker, make sure you get your butt in church," said Larson,
who conducted the smoking study."
Neilson:
Even when we control for smoking religious belief still comes out ahead.
The most important factor in well-being
Argyle
and Hill were studying religious experience. Researchers, who have a
large database, deal with a lot of people, tend to use simple one-factor
measures to measure happiness. Those with small samples, few people,
tend to use multiple measurements. The findings indicate that those who
are involved in religion report greater levels of happiness than do
those who are not. Neilson sites a study of over 16,000 people in
Europe, 85% of weekly churchgoers were “very satisfied” with life, only
77% among those who never went to church. This does not even measure
belief among non-churchgoers. Neilson sites studies by Argyle and Hills,
Inglehart (1990, just mentioned) and he also sites his own study.
Atheists
cannot make this go away by pretending it's just a matter of "getting
happy." they can't pretend the facts aren't as they are. the research is
there, it's proven. We can argue about the conclusions to be drawn, but
to deny the facts is merely sticking your head in the sand. shame shame
shame on you "free thinkers!" you can't face the facts.
