People who claim to have experienced personal encounters with ‘God’ report positive changes in their psychological health lasting decades, scientists say.
Over the millennia, people have reported having deeply moving religious experiences either spontaneously or while under the influence of psychedelic substances such as psilocybin-containing mushrooms or the Amazonian brew ayahuasca.
A portion of those experiences have been encounters with what the person regards as “God” or “ultimate reality.” In a survey of thousands of people who reported having experienced personal encounters with God, researchers from Johns Hopkins University in the US report that more than two-thirds of self-identified atheists shed that label after their encounter, regardless of whether it was spontaneous or while taking a psychedelic.
Moreover, a majority of respondents attributed lasting positive changes in their psychological health — life satisfaction, purpose and meaning — even decades after their initial experience, researchers said.
The findings, published in the journal PLOS ONE, add to evidence that such deeply meaningful experiences may have healing properties, the researchers said.
The study is the first to systematically and rigorously compare reports of spontaneous God encounter experiences with those occasioned, or catalysed, by psychedelic substances.
“Experiences that people describe as encounters with God or a representative of God have been reported for thousands of years, and they likely form the basis of many of the world’s religions,” said Roland Griffiths, a professor at the Johns Hopkins University.
“And although modern Western medicine doesn’t typically consider ‘spiritual’ or ‘religious’ experiences as one of the tools in the arsenal against sickness, our findings suggest that these encounters often lead to improvements in mental health,” Griffiths said in a statement.
For the study, the scientists used data from 4,285 people worldwide who responded to online advertisements to complete one of two 50-minute online surveys about God encounter experiences.
The surveys asked participants to recall their single most memorable encounter experience with the “God of their understanding,” a “higher power,” “ultimate reality” or “an aspect or representative of God, such as an angel.”
They also asked how respondents felt about their experience and whether and how it changed their lives. (PTI)
