This document discusses theories of spiritual transformation and how people cope with existential crises. It proposes that: 1) Existential crises can inspire spiritual transformation as people symbolically adapt through cognitive processes and cultural resources like religion. 2) Spiritual transformation results in a radical new understanding of the crisis as "holy" or "sacred" that provides higher meaning and personal value. 3) Transformation involves reinterpreting reality through discovering new aspects of self, perceptions of others, or values, and sometimes feeling subordinate to a higher power or gifted with new abilities. Meeting religious figures can inspire discovering a new self.

1. Pawel M. Socha
Institute for the Study of Religions
Jagiellonian University
Psychology of Religion Unit
e-mail: p.socha@iphils.uj.edu.pl
SPIRITUAL
TRANSFORMATION
OR AS THE IMPOSSIBLE
TURNS TO OBVIOUS

2. WHICH THEORIES CONTRIBUTED TO MY
POSITION ON SPIRITUALITY?
Notion of the boundary (existential) situation (K.
Jaspers)
Phenomenological-cognitive theory of coping (R.
Lazarus)
Theory of spiritual intelligence (R. Emmons)
Terror management theory (J. Greenberg, S. Solomon
& T. Pyszczynski)
Cognitive theory of the existential meaning (J.
Bering)

3. THE KEY
to
trans-
formation
THE EXISTENTIAL SITUATION
GRENZSITUATION (Karl Jaspers)

4. Process of coping with the existential situation
Existential
situation
Biological,
terrifying,
direct, purely
sensual,
„primary
experience” of
reality
Hay: relational
consciousness -
„here and now”,
„mystery”, „noetic
value”)
Greenberg,
Solomon &
Pyszczynski –
existential terror
CONSTRUCTION OF THE HUMAN DIMENSION OF REALITY
PROCESSES
OF
APPRAISAL –
feeling of
alienation,
necessities,
limitations of
time (mortality,
transitoriness),
of space,
psychological
deficits, inability
to „get out of
oneself”,
economical,
etc..
TRANSFORMATION
•Transformation is the process of symbolic adaptation
•This involves the evolutionary and culturally developed abilities,
consisting among others, of:
•Shared with animals, processes of orientation allowing for
the recognition of threats and of their avoidance
•Available only to humans IMPERATIVE ability for thinking
in terms of cause and reason (predicting, planning,
imaging, etc.), and directing these cognitive processes into
one’s self (self-awareness’ feedback)
•Evolutionary ability to attribute intentionality to any object
•Ability to manipulate one’s states of consciousness
(mysticism)
•Ability to put off the logos in favour of the mythos
•Accumulation of the resources of knowledge, accessible
also for next generations (creation of the culture)
In result of the transformation,
THE UNAVOIDABLE CAN
BECOME POSSIBLE, THE
IMPOSSIBLE TURNS TO OBVIOUS

5. Existential
situation
Biological,
terrifying,
direct, purely
sensual,
„primary
experience” of
reality
Hay: relational
consciousness -
„here and now”,
„mystery”, „noetic
value”)
Greenberg,
Solomon &
Pyszczynski –
existential terror
CONSTRUCTION OF THE HUMAN DIMENSION OF REALITY
PROCESES OF
APPRAISAL –
feeling of
alienation,
necessity,
limitations of
time (mortality,
transitoriness),
of space,
psychological
deficits, inability
to „get out of
oneself”,
economical,
etc..
TRANSFORMATION (SPIRITUAL)
RESOURCES: IDEALS AND PATTERNS OF CULTURE
AMONG OTHERS, ITS RESOURCES
ARE:
 Religion and religiousness
 National identity
 Family life
 Rules of social relationships, e.g.,
morality
 Forms of artistic expression
 Techniques of personal growth and
social integration
 Psychotherapies

6. Existential
situation
Biological,
terrifying,
direct, purely
sensual,
„primary
experience” of
reality
Hay: relational
consciousness -
„here and now”,
„mystery”, „noetic
value”)
Greenberg,
Solomon &
Pyszczynski –
existential terror
CONSTRUCTION OF THE HUMAN DIMENSION OF REALITY
PROCESES
OF
APPRAISAL –
feeling of
alienation,
necessity,
limitations of
time (mortality,
transitoriness),
of space,
psychological
deficits, inability
to „get out of
oneself”,
economical,
etc..
TRANSFORMATION
RESOURCES:
 Religion and
religiousness
 National identity
 Family life
 Rules of social
relationships, e.g.,
morality
 Forms of the artistic
expression
 Techniques of
personal growth and
social integration
 Psychotherapies
THE OUTCOMES OF TRANSFORMATION
RADICALLY NEW
UNDERSTANDING AND
EXPERIENCING OF THE
SITUATION AS
„HOLY”, „SACRED”
„MIRACULOUS”,
„SUPER-HUMAN”
– INCLUDING ONE’S OWN PERSON
AS EXCEPTIONAL:
Experience of a „higher”
meaning, affording an unusual
control, certainty of knowledge,
„higher” personal value, e.g., as
chosen („chosen” can be even a
nation), predestined to a special
mission, salvation, or other
reward

7. DETAILED ASPECTS
OF SPIRITUAL
TRANSFORMATION
AND ITS OUTCOMES

8. Any experience of transformation is a
reinterpretation of some element of reality, or its
fragment, in a new way
For example, such a fragment can be:
•Part of self-perception (elements of the Self scheme, such
as self-esteem, identification with another person, actual
or fictional, etc.)
•Way of perception of others (e.g., through development of
empathic skills)
•Vision of nature (e.g., development of ecological
awareness)
•Adaptation of new patterns of the ethical or esthetical
values

9. ... But there are also:
 such experiences of transformation, as:
 The subject’s subordination to a superior power
(e.g., a feeling of absolute dependence –
Schleiermacher’s theology)
 Furnishing the subject with the forces or
possibilities, not affordable before (e.g., ability of
healing)
 Or – on the opposite pole – putting off the
responsibility for the flow of things to the
transcendent agent, releasing the subject from decision
making or from any activity (decrease of subjectivity)

10. ... in the interaction with religious tradition:
Discovery of the
new self resulting
from the
experience of
meeting some
personal (best if
believed to be
divine,
supernatural)
being, like:
JESUS CHRIST
BUDDHA

11. ... Perfection or at least „exchange” of
the part of the self
The Buddhist Arhat
The Muslim convert
Jusuf Islam

12. ... Becoming a „destined” person
(a new self through revelation)
PROPHETS
EZECHIEL MUHAMMAD JOSEPH SMITH

13. … A SATANIC TRANSFORMATION
(a new self through possession)
Sister Jeanne des Anges from Loudun

14. IS THE TRANSFORMING EXPERIENCE
JUST THE RESULT OF IMAGERY???
The existential situation
cannot actually happen.
Why we would not just
imagine it? Recall:
Anxieties paralyzing the
neurotic individual
Breathtaking – both
fearful and ecstatic –
experience of the Himalaya
conqueror
Is there any benefit from these
instances?

15. Moreover…
Every HEALTHY individual „likes to feel fear”
We get bored with films without a suspense
Romantic love presented in literature or film „must” be
unfortunate
COPING „AS IF” – we
immunize ourselves to the
real situations
BUT WHY???