1. Do Atheists Find Meaning in their Mystical Experiences?
Dr Alice Herron;
Prof. Adrian Coyle;
Dr Emma Williamson
Do Atheists Find Meaning in their Mystical Experiences?

2. When atheists report experiences of a spontaneous, transformative, enlightening or of a mystical type (MTEs), given that they do not believe in supernatural agency:
how do they interpret them?
what meaning do they give to them?
what effect (if any) do they have on atheists’ sense of identity?

4. In your own words please describe your experience
In your own words please describe your experience. Give as much information as you find necessary to convey what the experience was like.
Please additionally give some idea of what you understood the experience to mean at the time.
Please describe any long-term impact you believe the experience has had on your life.

5. Atypical Event/Situation Phenomenological Features
New connections become salient and experienced as unity
Experience seen as meaningful
Feels s/he has realised new truths
S/he perceives the world in a new way
Making sense of experience after event
Atheist identity and meaning of experience reconciled

6. Name
Identity change
Meaning change
Timeframe for change
Frank
Atheist - Atheist
Solution to philosophical problem
instant
Brenda
Atheist→ Catholic
Belief in God
Instant
Ian
Source of meditation techniques
Oscar
Sense of presence → delusion
Minutes
Patsy
Atheist → Spiritual
Out of body → experience of soul
Weeks
Valerie
Atheist → Religious?
Feeling of ‘Belief in God’
Months
Oona
Atheist → Christian → Atheist
God’s love → result of priming when vulnerable
years
Wendy
Christian → Atheist
Presence of God → unity of the universe
Years
Edward
Atheist → Christian
Drug experience → meaningful vision from God
Daniel
Several experiences → on-going search for meaning

7. Harmonising the perceived meaning of the experience with identity
Changing identity to accommodate meaning
Reinterpreting meaning to preserve identity
Reconstructing both meaning and identity

8. Changing Identity to Accommodate Meaning
“…..I would say that even though I am a pretty militant atheist and I despise everything about religion, if another experience came upon me I would love it because if felt so good. It sounds awful.
…. to be honest, if I could feel like that again I don’t care about my principles, I would be quite happy to be religious if it meant that I could feel like that.”
(Valerie)

9. Reinterpreting Meaning to Accommodate Identity
“… But I think there had been a growing feeling, … the feeling that I was becoming, or realizing, that I was an atheist, that I started putting this different interpretation on the experience and started to feel that it wasn’t to do with God, it was to do with being part of the universe….
… The interpretation I put on it now, that it is a sense of connectedness with the universe, yes it’s nice to know we are connected with the place we are living in….” (Wendy, interview)

10. Reconstructing both meaning and identity
[Discussing his dream where God had spoken to him]
“….Why would God tell an atheist not to believe in Him? […] Despite His words, I could no longer be a militant atheist when ‘evidence’ was staring me in the face. I slid into agnosticism and became less preachy on the subject of religion. At the same time, I could not really believe the person I had talked to was God. It seemed more likely the entire dream was my brain playing tricks on me based on how I subconsciously perceive a God to be like [...]
(Ken, written account)

11. The meaning making model. From Park, 2010

12. Atypical Event/Situation Phenomenological Features
New connections become salient and experienced as unity
Experience seen as meaningful
Feels s/he has realised new truths
S/he perceives the world in a new way
Making sense of experience after event
Atheist identity and meaning of experience reconciled

14. Proposed Grounded Theory
MTEs can be conceptualized as an intuitive leap of meaning occurring when there is incongruence between an atypical situation and the person’s global meaning framework.
The intuitive leap is a meaning making effort in which the person’s global meaning framework is reconstructed to accommodate the new situation. It takes the form of an MTE where phenomenological turbulence intuitively and spontaneously draws on emotions and cognitions associated with a sense of of meaning in life.
After the experience the new framework is assessed and accepted, modified or rejected through a process of assimilation and accommodation.
The person looks for coherence between the new meaning framework and their identity. Again, through a process of assimilation or accommodation the person may modify or reject their atheism, or reject or reinterpret the MTE