Spirituality in the context of psychology - a brief history

I think that every nuance of human psychology has to be seen holistically and contextually - not in isolation, as part of a larger whole. Especially when looking at complex and elusive aspects of the human psyche, such as spirituality and religiosity. As the theologian Donald Capps once wrote (Donald Capps), "the religious is elusive not because it hides behind ordinary phenomena, but because it is woven into phenomena" (Capps, 1977, 48). We can find spirituality and religion in every dimension of life, so to simplify these phenomena or to see them "out of context" seems simply incorrect.

One of the contexts that often has a significant impact on the way we view phenomena of one kind or another is the historical context. For example, on the subject of spirituality and religion, when considered from a psychological perspective, knowledge of the history of psychology can provide insights into why certain views and differences of opinion persist in contemporary societies. History helps us to understand why we think the way we do about spirituality and religion today, in the 21st century. This article therefore takes a brief look at the history of psychology - how the study of spirituality and religiosity has developed within it.

The relation of the history of psychology to the history of spirituality and religiosity

First of all, it is important to note that spirituality and religiosity have a much longer history than psychology. 

Spirituality and religiosity are one of the elements that have characterised humanity virtually since the beginning of time - the earliest evidence of spiritual and religious practices dates back up to 60 000 years (History of Religion, 2023). The science of Western psychology, on the other hand, is considered to have begun in 1879 at the University of Leipzig, Germany (University of Leipzig) German psychologist Wilhelm Wundt (Wilhelm Wundt), established the first official psychological research laboratory - marking psychology as an independent field of research, separate from the other sciences.

The historical relationship between the two fields is incommensurable, and, taken in context, psychology has only just begun to explore the field of spirituality and religiosity.

The origins of research on spirituality and religiosity in psychology

In modern psychology, in Europe and America, the topic of spirituality only began to emerge at the end of the 19th century. At that time, the influence of secular institutions of education, welfare and law was growing in Western society, and the influence of traditional religion as a social force was declining. Previously, spiritual and religious phenomena had been studied almost exclusively from a theological perspective (Main, 2008).

Research in this new discipline was not initially oriented towards the production of neutral knowledge about spirituality and religion. On the contrary, there was polarisation. Some of the researchers involved were pro-religion, others were anti-religion, and the first efforts in the study of spirituality and religion were aimed either at relocating spirituality and religion in a form that met the standards of modern science or, once and for all, at refuting their significance (Main, 2008). 

Many early psychologists sought to provide reductionist explanations for spirituality and religion (explaining complex processes by the regularities of simple processes), or to distinguish psychology from the popular cultural view of spirituality and religion as parapsychology and spiritualism (Hood, 2012).

Parapsychology, spiritualism and their role in contemporary psychology

Explaining what is meant by "parapsychology" and "spiritualism".

Parapsychology (parapsychology, parapsychological (psi) phenomena) - the systematic study of phenomena involving the transfer of information or energy that cannot be explained by laws that have so far been scientifically established. At present, parapsychological research in science is mainly concerned with the study of various forms of extrasensory perception, e.g:

• telepathy (telepathy) - a possible form of extrasensory perception. Direct transfer of information from one mind to another without any known means of transmission. Thought reading, thought transference;
• clairvoyance (clairvoyance) - a possible form of extrasensory perception. The ability to see things outside the normal range of vision, such as distant or hidden objects, events in the past or future. 
• anticipation (precognition) - a possible form of extrasensory perception. The ability to foresee, foreknow or experience future events. 
• retrocognition (retrocognition) - a possible form of extrasensory perception. The ability to experience past events as if they were occurring in the present, to gain knowledge of knowledge of a past event that includes details that cannot be known, inferred or verified by ordinary means. 
• telekinesis (telekinesis) - a possible form of extrasensory perception. The ability to move material objects with the mind alone.
• psychokinesis (psychokinesis) - a possible form of extrasensory perception. The ability to control external events and to move or change the shape of material objects only with the help of thought, mind. For example, to manipulate the result of dice, to bend a piece of metal. 
• other psychic abilities (psychic ability) (APA Dictionary of Psychology, n.d.).

Spiritisms (spiritism, spiritualism) - the belief that spirits and the dead live in a parallel world or dimension and that the living can communicate with them (APA Dictionary of Psychology, n.d.).

Even in contemporary psychology, these concepts are largely ignored in the context of spirituality and religiosity. Parapsychology is largely distinguished as a separate field of research. Although parapsychologists also follow scientific methods and procedures, the field is still viewed with suspicion by most scientists, including most psychologists.

There are mainly three reasons for this suspicious attitude:

1. Confirming cause-effect relationships in just one paranormal case would force a serious rethink and restructuring of many established scientific principles and laws.
2. Even the best-documented positive confirmations in this field have so far not been reproducible (reproducibility is one of the basic principles of science to confirm the existence of a fact);
3. In the history of science, researchers have been fooled by charlatans (APA, 2015).

At the same time, it should be noted that research on spiritual experiences in recent years shows that people tend to interpret paranormal experiences as spiritual experiences. Thus, the most recent classification of spiritual experiences includes paranormal experiences alongside five other types of spiritual experiences (paranormal experiences) (Yaden & Newberg, 2023).

Polarisation of views at the start of the research

With the first wave of research on spirituality and religiosity, several distinct, and at the same time interrelated, approaches to the study of spirituality and religion emerged. One of these mainly involved the German-speaking part of the world, where Sigmund Freud (Sigmund Freud) and Carl Gustav Jung (Carl Gustav Jung) ideas. In the French-speaking part of the world, the ideas of Pierre Jeannet (Pierre Janet) and Theodor Flornoy (Théodore Flournoy) works. The leading voice in the further development of research on spirituality and religion was that of the English-speaking audience, where G. Stanley Hall (G. Stanley Hall), James Loeb (James Leuba), Edvīns Stārbaks (Edwin Starbuck), James Pratt (James Pratt) and, above all, William James (William James) (Wulff, 1997).

Of these, James represented the idea that spirituality and religion, and also psychic phenomena, can be essential components of human well-being (well-being), growth (growth) and a sense of happiness (happiness). He believed spirituality and religion can contribute to a positive psychological effect in a person and provide a sense of liberation from the "evils" of the world ("evils") (Parchment et al., 2013).

Freud, influenced by the French medical tradition, developed the idea of spirituality and religion as a form of pathology - as neurosis, illusion and mass delusion, thus linking spirituality and religion to madness (madness) (Hood, 2012), and expressing the hope that humanity might one day outgrow it in favour of a rational and scientific worldview (Parchment et al., 2013).

The dominance of the Freudian strand - spirituality as a form of pathology

In later years, the German branch began to dominate the English-speaking audience in the natural sciences, while in psychology, interest in religion and spirituality waned.

This trend is still present in contemporary society, including psychological science. In particular, the concept of spiritual experience - altered states of consciousness during which a person experiences a seeming connection with something greater than themselves. In the Western tradition, spiritual experiences have historically been seen as largely pathological, since similar in intensity and form to psychic experiences are experienced by individuals who experience symptoms of mental disorders such as nightmares, delusional hallucinations, bizarre beliefs about an external force influencing the individual's thoughts and behaviour (Schapiro, 2018; Cristofori et al., 2016), and mental illnesses such as bipolar disorder, depression, psychotic episode, schizophrenia, schizotypal personality disorder (Cristofori et al., 2016; Mercury, 2015; Menezes & Moreira-Almeida, 2010; Persinger, 1983; Saver & Rabin, 1997), as well as abnormal personality traits such as schizotypal personality traits and psychotic personality traits (Unterrainer et al., 2011). Only since the 20th century. The rapidly growing interest in the dimension of spirituality in both society and research (Piedmont & Wilkins, 2019), increasingly reflects the opposite view: the ability to enter a transcendent state of consciousness can be a sign of spiritual growth (Parnas & Henriksen, 2016; Waldorf & Moyers, 2001). 

The revival of research on spirituality and religiosity in psychology

The revival of interest in the study of spirituality and religiosity in psychology in the 1960s was largely due to cultural unrest, the emergence of new religious movements and the rise in popularity of altered states of consciousness induced by psychedelic substances (Hood, 2012).

After the introduction of psychoactive substances prohibition, research interest declined again for a few decades, and did not make a big impact until the end of the 20th century. It was only around the mid-1990s that the situation changed, and the number of studies in scientific journals on the dimension of spirituality began to increase rapidly, which, according to the American personality psychologist Ralph Piedmont (Ralph Piedmont) said it had "hung up the books" and "enthusiasm for this field of research has not diminished". "The genie seems to be out of the bottle and cannot be put back in. Despite its shortcomings and limitations, the sheer volume and consistency of discoveries seems to have changed the way science looks at issues of spirituality" (Piedmont & Wilkins, 2019, 6).

The psychology of spirituality and religion today

The field of the psychology of spirituality and religion is now well established and active (Hood, 2012).

To illustrate, see the number of searches done on the PsycINFO database for the keyword "religion" (religion) and "spirituality" (spirituality).

Sources:

American Psychological Association. (n.d.). APA dictionary of psychology. Retrieved October 18, 2023, from https://dictionary.apa.org/

Capps, D. E. (1977). Contemporary psychology of religion: The task of theoretical reconstruction. In H. W. Malony (Ed.), Current perspectives in the psychology of religion (pp. 36-52). Grand Rapids, MI: Eerdmans.

Cristofori, I., Bulbulia, J., Shaver, J. H., Wilson, M., Krueger, F., Grafman, J. (2016). Neural correlates of mystical experience. Neuropsychology, 80, 212-220. 

History of Religion | Origin, Timeline & Creation. (2023, April 11). Retrieved from https://study.com/academy/lesson/history-of-religion-overview-origin-timeline.html

Hood, R. W., Jr. (2012). The history and current state of research on psychology of religion. In L. J. Miller (Ed.), The Oxford handbook of psychology and spirituality (pp. 7-20). Oxford University Press.

Hood Jr, R. W., Hill, P. C., & Spilka, B. (2018). The psychology of religion: An empirical approach. Guilford Publications. ISBN: 9781462535989.

Jones (Eds.), APA handbook of psychology, religion, and spirituality (Vol. 1): Context, theory, and research (pp. 3-19). American Psychological Association. 

Main, R. (2008), Psychology of Religion: An Overview of its History and Current Status. Religion Compass, 2: 708-733. 

Menzes, A., Moreira-Almeida, A. (2010). Religion, Spirituality, and Psychosis. Current Psychiatry Reports, 12, 174-179.

Merkur, D. (2015). Mysticism. International Encyclopedia of the Social & Behavioral Sciences (Second Edition) 

Pargament, K. I. (Ed.). (2013). APA Handbook of Psychology, Religion, and Spirituality. American Psychological Association. 

Pargament, K. I. (Ed.), & Mahoney, A., & Exline, J. J., Jones, J. W. (Eds.), & Shafranske, E. P. (2013). Envisioning an integrative paradigm for the psychology of religion and spirituality. In K. I. Pargament, J. J. Exline, & J. W. 

Parnas, J., Henriksen, M.G. (2016). Mysticism and schizophrenia: A phenomenological exploration of the structure of consciousness in schizophrenia spectrum disorders. Consciousness and Cognition Journal, 43, 75-88.

Persinger, M.A. (1983). Religious and mystical experiences as artifacts of temporal lobe function: a general hypothesis. Perceptual and Motor Skills, 57(3), 1255-1262. 

Piedmont, R.L., & Wilkins, T.A. (2019). Understanding the Psychological Soul of Spirituality. Routledge. 

Saver, J.L., Rabin, J. (1997) The neural substrates of religious experience. Neuropsychiatry, 9, 498-510.

Schapiro, N.M. (2018). Exploring the Correlates of Correctly Diagnosing Spiritual and Religious Experiences. Louisville, Kentucky: Spalding University

Yaden & Newberg. (2022). The Varieties of Spiritual Experiences. 21st Century Research and Perspectives. Oxford University Press

Waldorf, V.A., Moyers, T.B. (2001). Psychotherapy and Religion, International Encyclopedia of the Social & Behavioral Sciences, 12466-12470.

Wulff, D, 1997, Psychology of Religion: Classic and Contemporary, 2nd ed., Wiley, New York, NY.

VandenBos, G. R. (Ed.). (2015). APA dictionary of psychology (2nd ed.). American Psychological Association.

Unterrainer, H.F., Huber, H.P., Sorgo, I.M., Collicutt, J., Fink, A. (2011). Dimensions of religious/spiritual well-being and schizotypal personality. Personality and Individual Differences, 51, 360-364.