# Do you believe in spiritual experiences?
**URL:** https://boards.straightdope.com/t/do-you-believe-in-spiritual-experiences/318744
**Category:** Great Debates
**Created:** [August 26, 2005, 4:27pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/do-you-believe-in-spiritual-experiences/318744 "2005-08-26T16:27:20Z")
**Posts on this page:** 20
**Page:** 1
### Author:  [@Kythereia](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Kythereia)
#### Post date: [August 26, 2005, 4:27pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/do-you-believe-in-spiritual-experiences/318744/1 "2005-08-26T16:27:20Z")
You know, religious epiphanies, revelations, dawnings. Do you think they’re for real?
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### Author:  [@Qadgop\_the\_Mercotan](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Qadgop_the_Mercotan)
#### Post date: [August 26, 2005, 4:53pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/do-you-believe-in-spiritual-experiences/318744/2 "2005-08-26T16:53:27Z")
> [@Kythereia](#):
>
> You know, religious epiphanies, revelations, dawnings. Do you think they’re for real?
Sure. The day I viscerally realized that if I wanted a decent life I’d have to act less selfishly, and behave more lovingly and honestly represented a true spiritual awakening for me.
Not sure there was anything supernatural about it, though. Just a compass change, away from being so self-serving and more towards being of more use to others.
But that’s just me.
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### Author:  [@Dunderman](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Dunderman)
#### Post date: [August 26, 2005, 4:56pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/do-you-believe-in-spiritual-experiences/318744/3 "2005-08-26T16:56:02Z")
Depends on what you mean by “real”. “Real” as in “really actually experienced by real actual beings”, sure, I believe they’re real.
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### Author:  [@Kythereia](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Kythereia)
#### Post date: [August 26, 2005, 5:18pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/do-you-believe-in-spiritual-experiences/318744/4 "2005-08-26T17:18:11Z")
Sorry, Priceguy, I should’ve been clearer. 😉 I mean, do you think spiritual experiences are indicative of a spiritual reality (in which there may or may not be a God)?
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### Author:  [@Cliffy](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Cliffy)
#### Post date: [August 26, 2005, 5:22pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/do-you-believe-in-spiritual-experiences/318744/5 "2005-08-26T17:22:53Z")
Nope.
–Cliffy
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### Author:  [@John\_Mace](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/John_Mace)
#### Post date: [August 26, 2005, 5:38pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/do-you-believe-in-spiritual-experiences/318744/6 "2005-08-26T17:38:55Z")
> [@Kythereia](#):
>
> Sorry, Priceguy, I should’ve been clearer. 😉 I mean, do you think spiritual experiences are indicative of a spiritual reality (in which there may or may not be a God)?
But here’s the problem: What do you mean by “reality”? Do you mean the physical world? Do you mean that “spiritual reality” can somehow interact with “physical reality”? If so, then there is not one piece of scientific evidence that this is true. If you mean some “spiritual reality” that is completely seperate from the physical world, then I guess my question would be: how is that any different than if the spiritual world didn’t exist at all?
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### Author:  [@cosmosdan](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/cosmosdan)
#### Post date: [August 26, 2005, 5:50pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/do-you-believe-in-spiritual-experiences/318744/7 "2005-08-26T17:50:41Z")
> [@John Mace](#):
>
> But here’s the problem: What do you mean by “reality”? Do you mean the physical world? Do you mean that “spiritual reality” can somehow interact with “physical reality”? If so, then there is not one piece of scientific evidence that this is true. If you mean some “spiritual reality” that is completely seperate from the physical world, then I guess my question would be: how is that any different than if the spiritual world didn’t exist at all?
If someone changes their behavior becuase of a spiritual experience and that changes the course of their lives and the way they make decisions and interest with others then isn’t that having an effect on physical reality? Say an alchoholic decides to quit drinking because of a spiritual experience. Won’t that have a physical effect?
to the OP; Having have some significant experiences that I call spiritual, my answer would be yes, I think they’re real.
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### Author:  [@Der\_Trihs](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Der_Trihs)
#### Post date: [August 26, 2005, 5:50pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/do-you-believe-in-spiritual-experiences/318744/8 "2005-08-26T17:50:43Z")
I believe people really have “spiritual experiences”, but I don’t think they are anything but a brain hiccup. Something short circuits, you have a weird sensation or a hallucination, and if it fits your particular mythology, it’s a spiritual experience. IIRC a scientist recently developed a helmet that can stimulate the so-called “God Module” in the brain ( with magnetic fields ) and produce spiritual experiences on demand; he can even make it a good or bad one.
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### Author:  [@Miller](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Miller)
#### Post date: [August 26, 2005, 5:53pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/do-you-believe-in-spiritual-experiences/318744/9 "2005-08-26T17:53:00Z")
Do I think they’re real? Yes, absolutely. Do I think they’re supernatural? No, of course not. It’s all in our heads, but that doesn’t mean it’s not real.
I’d like to see a cite for the Epiphany Hat, though.
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### Author:  [@Der\_Trihs](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Der_Trihs)
#### Post date: [August 26, 2005, 6:06pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/do-you-believe-in-spiritual-experiences/318744/10 "2005-08-26T18:06:00Z")
> [@Miller](#):
>
> I’d like to see a cite for the Epiphany Hat, though.
[Here’s one](http://www.onset.unsw.edu.au/issue4/neuroreligion/neuroscience%20and%20religion.htm)
> [@](#):
>
> God helmet: induced religious experience
>
> To neurologists, religious experience is attributed to a particular neural activity; therefore it is not surprising that they can use a tool to induce religious experience within a person. Michael Persinger, a recognized neurologist, has invented a helmet that is able to induce mystical experiences by using electromagnets to stimulate the right temporal lobe (Hercz, 2002). More than a thousand volunteers have tried the helmet, and 80% of them are reported to experience a ‘tangible presence’. Hercz explains that stimulation of the right temporal lobe invokes right-sided self, which the dominant left-sided self perceives as another entity. The feeling eventually leads subjects to have religious experiences, such as the feeling of infinite possibilities and the sense that there must be something greater.
Try googling “God Module Helmet”
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### Author:  [@John\_Mace](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/John_Mace)
#### Post date: [August 26, 2005, 6:07pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/do-you-believe-in-spiritual-experiences/318744/11 "2005-08-26T18:07:37Z")
> [@cosmosdan](#):
>
> If someone changes their behavior becuase of a spiritual experience and that changes the course of their lives and the way they make decisions and interest with others then isn’t that having an effect on physical reality? Say an alchoholic decides to quit drinking because of a spiritual experience. Won’t that have a physical effect?
If it was indeed “spiritual”. If I can accomplish the same thing by simply “thinking”, does that make it spiritual? The act of thinking, being a process, is not physical per se. But it’s cause is physical. The key is to prove that what is “spiritual” is not simply a manifestation of the thinking process (or the mind).
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### Author:  [@Polycarp](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Polycarp)
#### Post date: [August 26, 2005, 6:42pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/do-you-believe-in-spiritual-experiences/318744/12 "2005-08-26T18:42:18Z")
It’s not an issue of “believing in” at all. It’s an incontrovertible fact that various events have, do, and will occur that move some people spiritually (which as noted is not necessarily religiously; see **Eve** ’s thread about what people mean by spirituality). How people understand and interpret the events that occur to them is very much conditioned by their religious belief or lack thereof.
Allow me to point out that subjective experiences are ones that absolutely **will** not affect different people in the same way, but rather in quite different ways. The fact that you, a rational agnostic, Hari a devout Hindu, and me, a liberal Christian, experienced the same sunrise at the same place will not mean that we got the same spiritual effect from it. And the fact that Joe, with issues he’s dealing with, was unaffected by the same event that caused different experiences in the three of us, does not mean that our experiences were “unreal” in some way.
Now, as to whether the interpretations that any one of us place on our experiences are in fact valid, that is a quite different debate. And one that nobody seems to be willing to come to a general agreement about.
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### Author:  [@Dunderman](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Dunderman)
#### Post date: [August 26, 2005, 7:03pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/do-you-believe-in-spiritual-experiences/318744/13 "2005-08-26T19:03:30Z")
> [@Kythereia](#):
>
> Sorry, Priceguy, I should’ve been clearer. 😉 I mean, do you think spiritual experiences are indicative of a spiritual reality (in which there may or may not be a God)?
Then, provided your definition of “spiritual reality” is anywhere close to mine, my answer is “no”.
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### Author:  [@lekatt](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/lekatt)
#### Post date: [August 26, 2005, 7:44pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/do-you-believe-in-spiritual-experiences/318744/14 "2005-08-26T19:44:33Z")
Yes, there is a spiritual world. Yes, there are real spiritual experiences that reveal that world and change the course of the experiencer’s life. This has happened in all the recorded history of mankind, and it happens today.
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### Author:  [@Anaamika](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Anaamika)
#### Post date: [August 26, 2005, 8:40pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/do-you-believe-in-spiritual-experiences/318744/15 "2005-08-26T20:40:06Z")
No, there is no spiritual world, nothing above us, we are as real as we see. Our senses are false and easily deceived - look at a page of optical illusions if you don’t believe me. Or talk to three eyewitnesses of the same event.
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### Author:  [@John\_Mace](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/John_Mace)
#### Post date: [August 26, 2005, 8:59pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/do-you-believe-in-spiritual-experiences/318744/16 "2005-08-26T20:59:03Z")
> [@Polycarp](#):
>
> It’s not an issue of “believing in” at all. It’s an incontrovertible fact that various events have, do, and will occur that move some people spiritually (which as noted is not necessarily religiously; see **Eve** ’s thread about what people mean by spirituality). How people understand and interpret the events that occur to them is very much conditioned by their religious belief or lack thereof.
I’m not trying to be smart alecky, but how do you differentiate between something that moves someone _spiritually_ and something that moves someone _emotionally_? Or, is it just a different way of saying the same thing?
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### Author:  [@lekatt](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/lekatt)
#### Post date: [August 26, 2005, 9:07pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/do-you-believe-in-spiritual-experiences/318744/17 "2005-08-26T21:07:03Z")
> [@Anaamika](#):
>
> No, there is no spiritual world, nothing above us, we are as real as we see. Our senses are false and easily deceived - look at a page of optical illusions if you don’t believe me. Or talk to three eyewitnesses of the same event.
The spiritual world is not above us, but within us.
If our senses are so unreliable, how do we know anything at all. Don’t you realize our knowledge comes from experience, that is through our senses. Sorry, I don’t understand how you come to that conclusion. Perhaps you could enlighten me.
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### Author:  [@Der\_Trihs](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Der_Trihs)
#### Post date: [August 26, 2005, 9:13pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/do-you-believe-in-spiritual-experiences/318744/18 "2005-08-26T21:13:30Z")
> [@lekatt](#):
>
> The spiritual world is not above us, but within us.
In other words it’s subjective/imaginary.
> [@lekatt](#):
>
> ]If our senses are so unreliable, how do we know anything at all. Don’t you realize our knowledge comes from experience, that is through our senses. Sorry, I don’t understand how you come to that conclusion. Perhaps you could enlighten me.
It’s called “science” and “reason”. You test what you sense, other people test as well. You make theories about how the world works, and test those as well. Above all, nothing is held sacred; nothing is beyond question.
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### Author:  [@Spiritus\_Mundi](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Spiritus_Mundi)
#### Post date: [August 26, 2005, 9:13pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/do-you-believe-in-spiritual-experiences/318744/19 "2005-08-26T21:13:40Z")
The experiences are real. Whether the perceptions are accurate is the more difficult question. I have experienced epiphanies, revelations, and dawnings. But I have never perceived God.
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### Author:  [@Miller](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Miller)
#### Post date: [August 26, 2005, 9:14pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/do-you-believe-in-spiritual-experiences/318744/20 "2005-08-26T21:14:22Z")
> [@lekatt](#):
>
> The spiritual world is not above us, but within us.
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