Absorption and spiritual experience: A review of evidence and potential mechanisms.

A general tendency called 'absorption'—the capacity to become deeply immersed in sensory and imaginative experiences—underlies a broad proclivity for spiritual experiences. People high in absorption readily sense supernatural presences, receive messages from God, and feel self-transcendence, awe, and wonder. High scorers on the Tellegen Absorption Scale report vivid experiences such as hearing God's voice during prayer, intense mystical states from psychedelics or placebo brain-stimulation, and strong feelings of presence and transcendence when encountering natural beauty, virtual reality, or music. Absorption appears to intensify inner and outer sensory experience, blending prior expectation with novel engagement, making imagined things feel more real.

Study at a glance

Abstract

Some people seem to have a 'talent' for spiritual experience: they readily sense the presence of supernatural beings, receive special messages from God, and report intense feelings of self-transcendence, awe and wonder. Here we review converging strands of evidence to argue that the trait of 'absorption' captures a general proclivity for having spiritual experiences. Participants scoring highly on the Tellegen Absorption Scale report vivid experiences of hearing God's voice during prayer, intense mystical experiences in response to psychedelics or placebo brain-stimulation, and strong feelings of presence and transcendence when confronted with natural beauty, virtual reality, or music. Several mechanisms may help to explain the relationship between absorption and spiritual experience. We suggest that absorption captures an experiential mindset that intensifies inner and outer sensory experience in ways that reflect both prior expectation and novel sensory engagement. It seems to enable that which must be imagined to feel more real.