Investigating the Potential for Mystical-Type Experiences and Related Phenomena to Shift Existential Perspectives

Abstract

This article introduces a novel theoretical extension to Terror Management Theory (TMT; Greenberg, Pyszczynski, & Solomon, 1986) regarding unique phenomenological experiences called mystical-type experiences (MTEs). These experiences and others like them fall under a broader umbrella which Robert J. Lifton (1979) calls the experiential mode of transcendence; which is just one mode, amongst four others, that allow a person to transcend, specifically, the fear of their own inevitable death. Recent clinical research has suggested that psychedelic-assisted therapy can be effective in treating various diagnoses. The current set of three studies examined whether the value of psychedelics may stem from them providing people with MTEs because such experiences alter people’s attitudes about death, spirituality, and sense of connection or unity to all things. Study 1 found that college students who have had an MTE had higher belief in an afterlife and everlasting soul and were more invested in intrinsic spirituality, but not extrinsic religiosity. But having had an MTE was not associated with measures of mental health, self-esteem, or meaning. Study 2 replicated the findings for soul belief and spirituality/religiosity, and also found that people who had an MTE were higher in absorption, quest orientation, and focus on personal growth. Study 3 attempted to use a writing task to induce a sense of unbounded unity or ingroup unity and compare the effects of these inductions to a control condition. However, the manipulation did not seem to have much effect, although Study 3 did find that under certain conditions high trait absorption was associated with better psychological well-being, greater belief in some form of post-death existence, and greater positive and negative emotion. These mixed results suggest that further research on the effects of MTEs and the aspects of MTEs that matter are needed, along with better methods to induce aspects like a sense of unity.