Dr. Tanya Luhrmann (Stanford University) will undertake research on how some Americans learn to make judgments about experiences they label spiritual. The researcher draws upon prior ethnographic fieldwork that found that there are at least two distinct kinds of learning involved: the acquisition of cultural knowledge, or "discourse," and the development of specific psychological skills through prayer practice that change how people experience their minds and bodies. By focusing on the importance of learning in a social setting, the research will contribute to scientific understanding how some people learn to have intimate spiritual experiences and how powerful that learning experience can be in shaping the ways in which the world is experienced.
The current project is framed around the hypotheses that (1) spiritual experience is shaped by combination of belief, proclivity, and practice; (2) that specific forms of learned kataphatic or imagination-based prayer increase mental imagery and unusual sensory experiences; and (3) that some individuals, who report more phenomena in the first place and score higher on an absorption scale, change more than others. Research methods include experimental prayer training followed by evaluation; intensive interviews about spiritual experience; and technical discourse analysis of taped reports of spiritual experiences. Data analysis will employ cyber-enabled text analysis and other methods used to systematically analyze qualitative data.
We appear to have supported the basic hypothesis of the proposal, which was that prayer has consequences more powerful for those who pray than simply changing their verbal reports ("pious platitudes"). In particular, kataphatic (or imagination-rich) prayer appears (on average) to sharpen the subjective experience of mental imagery; to improve the capacity to attend to perceived images and possibly remembered images; and to increase the likeliness of reporting unusual experience. In addition, there appears to be a relationship between imaginative prayer practice and unusual spiritual experience. More precise details: We conducted a randomized controlled trial in which people were assigned randomly to imaginative prayer or Bible study for one month. At the conclusion of the trial we found that there were significant cognitive differences between them. Those assigned to the prayer condition reported more vivid mental imagery and (possibly) demonstrated more use of mental imagery and more sustained visual attention. There were also differences in the way that people reported hearing from God. Comparing the responses of those in the kataphatic condition and the study condition at the end of the month long intervention, there were no differences between the groups in their reports of whether they had heard from God in general that month. There was no difference between them on whether they had heard from God through circumstances. There was no difference on whether they had received thoughts from God. However, in the post-interview, those in the Bible study condition were significantly more likely to report that they experienced God as speaking through scripture that month. Meanwhile those in the kataphatic condition reported more frequent guidance from God through intense feelings and vivid physical sensations. Kataphatic subjects also were more likely to reported that God guided them through clear images and meaningful images. There also appear to be differences in unusual sensory experiences. These are not strong differences, but they were present, and they support the ethnographic observation that prayer practice is associated with these reports of powerful spiritual experience. Those in the kataphatic condition reported six meaningful experiences during the month-long intervention, while among the Bible study subjects, only one person reported such an experience. Controlling for the frequency of auditory and visual experience reported in the pre-interview and correlating condition with the yes/no report of a meaningful experience, there is a significant difference in unusual sensory experience between kataphatic and study conditions. There is an increased rate of unusual spiritual experience for those in the kataphatic prayer practice group. In short, the project demonstrates through a randomized controlled trial that prayer practice has an impact on mental experience in general and spiritual experience in particular.
