Readings
From The Science of Awe written by Summer Allen, PhD: “[Awe
results when] any stimulus exceeds a person’s normal range of experience in one
attribute or another… [Awe] leads to a ‘perception of vastness’…that leads
people to feel as if they are part of something larger than themselves...[or
leads to a] ‘need for accommodation’ when it violates our normal understanding
of the world…Experiencing awe often puts people in a self-transcendent state
where they focus less on themselves…awe can be considered an altered state of
consciousness…”
Rabbi [Abraham Joshua] Heschel observes: “Awe is something
that is evoked. We do not manufacture
it; it is not a product of will power or of naked patriarchy… It is a gift, a
grace. We undergo it and we receive it… Awe is an intuition for the dignity of
all things, a realization that things not only are what they are but also
stand, however remotely, for something supreme.
Awe is a sense for the transcendence, for the reference everywhere to
mystery beyond all things. It enables us
to perceive in the world intimations of the divine….to sense the ultimate in
the common and the simple; to feel in the rush of the passing, the stillness of
the eternal.” (“Rabbi Heschel on the Via Positiva part 2” by Episcopal priest
Matthew Fox)
Theoretical Physicist Albert Einstein wrote: “The most beautiful
thing we can experience is the mysterious. It is the source of all true art and
science. [Those] to whom this emotion is a stranger, who can no longer pause to
wonder and stand rapt in awe, [are] as good as dead: Their eyes are closed.”
Sermon
The
Daodejing begins, “The Way that can be followed is not the eternal Way. The
name that can be named is not the eternal name.” Mysticism has often been
defined as the essence of religion and spirituality, and mystical experiences
are commonly characterized as ineffable, transcendent, beyond the rational, and
expressible only in paradox and metaphor. Awe and wonder are a fundamental
aspect of mystical experiences.
Science is
“the intellectual and practical activity encompassing the systematic study of
the structure and behavior of the physical and natural world through
observation and experiment.” (google dictionary) The scientific method involves
research. Scientific truths involve
creating a hypothesis, testing, and analyzing the results. At its essence, science is an expression of
curiosity, looking deeper into experiences that prod you, attempting to resolve
information that doesn’t make sense to you, and finding answers that ultimately
create more questions. For some
scientists, experiences of awe and wonder are at the heart of what moves them
to start their research, study, or exploration.
What is
awe? Well you heard some definitions
earlier in the service. So, why do
scientists—people who find answers using research and study-- and mystics—people
who ground themselves in the amorphous and intangible world of the spiritual
and religious—find value in awe? Do
experiences of awe have any value for us?
Many years ago, when I was
psychotherapist, I was treating a young woman who had attempted suicide and was
hospitalized in a locked psychiatric unit.
As we talked, I noticed that sometimes her mannerisms changed, her
facial expressions seemed to shift, even her vocal quality was not always the
same.
This puzzled me. After treating her for some time, I wondered
out loud to her about these changes. She
immediately regressed into a ball on the floor, and started crying. I was shocked by this, and tried to provide
her some comfort. She started sharing
with me that she had blackouts, times when she didn’t know what she had done,
and didn’t know how she had gotten where she found herself to be. I was a little anxious about her disclosure,
primarily because I didn’t know how to respond.
In the back of my mind, I wondered
if she could have some sort of dissociative disorder or even a multiple
personality disorder. But my rational
mind said, “there is really no such thing as multiple personality disorder.” Lots of my peers felt that multiple
personality disorder was just a sham disorder— a disorder in which a patient
deliberately produces or falsifies symptoms of illness, for the sole purpose of
assuming the sick role and getting attention.
I wondered if she was just using
all these odd symptoms to see how I would respond. But as I continued to work with her, I
pondered at my own response to her problem.
She began disclosing a fascinating internal world of people of all ages
and sexes that lived in and through her.
Some were weak, some strong, some controlling, some destructive, some
trying to save this young woman from self-destruction. Parts of her would respond to psychotropic
medication while others would not. Parts
of her had access to certain memories that others did not. Parts of her had infirmities that others did
not. I once saw a bruise appear and
disappear as she shifted from one personality to the next. I listened and observed in awe of what she
was describing. I felt such powerful emotions as she spoke. As I observed her tears flowed from my eyes. Not because I was sad, but because I was so
overfilled with emotions—fear, amazement, awe, wonder. I remember experiencing a ‘perception of
vastness’, as if I were in the presence of something larger than I could
possibly understand. And I felt a ‘need
for accommodation’; my normal understanding of the world was going to have to
expand if I was going to be able to understand or help this person.
My vision of what was possible
expanded exponentially. My beliefs about
human minds, bodies, even what was possible biochemically were shaken and I
began to realize that my own intuitions, my own prima facie experiences, had
just as much validity as the purely fact-based knowledge of my professional
peers—even though my own conclusions were diametrically opposed to theirs. The power of awe led me on a journey of study
and work to understand this condition and to figure out how to treat this
woman.
Before this
experience, I thought of awe as solely a spiritual experience, something that I
was graced with, a gift when I saw something vast or incomprehensibly beautiful
or deeply moving. I remember the first
time I hiked Big Bend National Park and stood on the Mount Emory beneath a
night sky pin-pricked with stars. For
the first time I could clearly see the vastness of our little patch of the
universe sparkling with mysteries. I
felt humble as I contemplated my place, my tiny little speck of a place, within
all of existence. I wondered how I fit
into this vastness. Trying to take in the
mystery of all that could possibly exist, of all there was to understand in our
universe, it was overwhelming. I felt a
connection with something larger than myself in the experience of the stillness
of the eternal in the sky above. In that
moment, I didn’t think about what meaning I should make of this
experience. I didn’t feel any motivation
to study the stars or try to figure out how to reach them. I simply took the experience in and let it
sink into me with joy. In the years
since, I’ve been able to draw on that experience to re-connect with my
understanding of the divine and the universe, as well as my place in the
universe, recalling a mood, a feeling, an experience, I could not and didn’t
need to quantify with words.
About 4
years ago, I had some pushback when I described ‘awe’ as a spiritual
experience, particularly from a group of folks who didn’t believe in anything
supernatural, anything spiritual, or in any aspect of divinity or the
divine. I remember when one man, who
described himself as a secular humanist, told me that he had had many
experiences of ‘awe’ in nature and said none of them were spiritual—they were,
to him, emotional and profound, even transformative, but not spiritual. Some of these experiences he held within
himself to remember and reflect on.
Generally these experiences were positive and affirming. Some motivated him to treat others more
kindly and to respect the earth. And
some of these experiences prodded his curiosity and his skepticism, and
decreased his materialism.
After our
conversation I wondered, “Is awe a spiritual experience, or is it an altered
state of consciousness? Is there only a
specific segment of the population, a particular type of person, who is able to
have experiences of awe? Does the experience of awe have an evolutionary
purpose for humankind?” I knew it’s
effects on me were varied. And I knew
many people had described awe as spiritual.
At least a few, like Albert Einstein, spoke about his experiences of
‘awe’ as being necessary to his scientific curiosity, writing: “The most
beautiful thing we can experience is the mysterious. It is the source of all
true art and science. [Those] to whom this emotion is a stranger, who can no
longer pause to wonder and stand rapt in awe, [are] as good as dead: Their eyes
are closed.” So many questions, so few
clear answers. And maybe there aren’t
any clear answers.
Part of me was curious about awe as a
phenomenon to be studied and part of me preferred the experience of awe without
explanation, simply allowing it to grace my life, leaving me feeling connected,
humble, and wonder-full. However, my
curiosity got the better of me and I searched for and found a summation of the
research that has been done on awe.
Sounds very Unitarian Universalist doesn’t it. It started: “While philosophers and religious
scholars have explored awe for centuries, it was largely ignored by
psychologists until the early 2000s…This has led to a number of fascinating
discoveries about the nature of awe, while also raising many questions still to
be explored.” (A white paper prepared for the John Templeton Foundation by the
Greater Good Science Center at UC Berkeley, September 2018, “The Science of
Awe”). In for a penny, in for a pound, I
continued reading.
The image to your right is of milk, dye, and water. It is from a video that was used by researchers trying to elicit the experience of awe in a
study participants. And in fact, these
kinds of videos often did elicit an experience of awe in college students. But here’s the question that was not
answered by this study: why does this video elicit awe? Perhaps some of you might share your thoughts
with us after the service today.
As we
grapple with what awe is, what elicits awe, and whether awe serves some sort of
evolutionary purpose, we could look at the meaning awe held for our
ancestors. There are theories that the
experience of awe helped early humans find vast spaces to settle together—like
valleys or canyons-- or that the experience of awe undergirded early community
building, since the awe experience often results in people feeling more
connected to one another and sometimes results in people being kinder to
others. We could look at early meanings of
the word awe; in Old English and Old Norse, awe meant “fear and dread
particularly toward divine beings.” The
English meaning evolved into “dread mingled with veneration, reverential or
respectful fear; and the attitude of a mind subdued to profound reverence in
the presence of supreme authority, moral greatness or sublimity, or mysterious
sacredness.” Today, we often hear the
word awe used in reference to “a positive experience in nature.”
Pretty much
all this research has limitations, and those limitations may impact the
ultimate meaning of awe for each and all of us.
You see awe experiences are elusive and hard to define. Perhaps that’s their nature. But does that make them any less useful to
us? To mystics? To scientists?
Even though
I was aware of these limitations, I did find myself drawn to the tool
researchers used to measure awe.
Researchers often use the awe subscale in the Dispositional Positive
Emotion Scale. In this diagnostic tool a
person is asked to indicate their level of agreement on a scale from 1-7 for
each of the following statements:
I often feel awe.
I see beauty all around me.
I feel wonder almost every day.
I often look for patterns in the objects around me.
I have many opportunities to see the beauty of nature.
I seek out experiences that challenge my understanding of
the world.
I am
partial to the final statement from the awe subscale. I seek out experiences that challenge my
understanding of the world. Those
experiences may result in my doing more research, or may result in my holding
onto to those experiences to reflect on later for spiritual grounding or joy. In my current stage of development, I
understand that I need mental and spiritual challenges in my life to continue
to grow in spirit and wisdom, to learn more about myself and others, to deepen
my relationships, and to find additional ways to be kinder and more respectful
to people and planet.
What would change if you put these statements from the awe subscale on your desk or on your refrigerator, and looked at them from time to time. Considering how awe fits into or could fit into your life. Perhaps these statements might lead you to
consider the value of awe. And perhaps
these statements might help you define awe for yourself, as a mystic, a
scientist, as both, or as none of the above, or maybe as a Unitarian
Universalist.
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