The 2022 Annual Alister Hardy Lecture
Is Altruism a Principal Fruit of Spiritual Experience? An Exploration of the Alister Hardy Religious Experience Research Centre Archive
Abstract
This paper focuses on the ‘fruits’ or consequences of religious and spiritual experiences (RSEs) recorded in the Archive of the Alister Hardy Religious Experience Research Centre (RERC).
My first research question asks, ‘What, in the RERC Archive, are the fruits of RSEs in terms of inner transformation and outward behaviour?’. A quantitative, numerical analysis of the range of consequences, including religious and spiritual changes is given, and in a qualitative approach specific accounts are explored in more depth.
My second research question became, ‘Is the designation “Intense Experience†as expounded by Wesley J. Wildman in his Religious and Spiritual Experiences (2011) helpful for researchers when evaluating RSEs, particularly those of people who do not consider themselves religious?’.
Study of the literature gave rise to the third research question, ‘Can the hypothesis that a turn from self-centredness to altruism is the dominant category underlying the variety of fruits of experience be supported through analysis of the RERC Archive?’ A mixed methods approach to the data appeared to lend support for this hypothesis.
Downloads
Published
Issue
Section
License
The Journal for the Study of Religious Experience is a peer-reviewed, open-access journal. All journal content, except where otherwise noted, is licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International License.
The copyright for articles published in this journal is retained by the authors and the Journal for the Study of Religious Experience. Â Authors would need to request the reuse of the article in case they want to publish it elsewhere and they should acknowledge the initial publication in JSRE.
Authors are permitted and encouraged to post online (e.g., in institutional repositories or on their website) a link to the Journal’s website where the article may be downloaded for free.
Authors are responsible for ensuring copyright clearance for any images, tables, etc. which are supplied from an outside source.
Â