Abstract
This article aims to explore contemplative (pray or meditation) practitioners’ direct lived experiences of enlightenment and develop a multi-item scale measuring these experiences. A mixed-method approach was adopted. The first study is a phenomenological study that interviewed 24 participants with enlightenment experiences and the second study is a scale-development study that recruited 1130 participants for scale validation. Two major clusters of the enlightenment experiences including sensory feelings and nondual realizations emerged from the phenomenological study and the four main themes of the realizations were formed: intrapersonal insights, inspiration internalization, interpersonal compassion, and interconnectedness. After exploratory factor analysis (EFA) and confirmatory factor analysis (CFA), a three-factor structure of the Spiritual Enlightenment Experience Scale (SEES), including nonduality, sensory clarity, and sensory disappearance were revealed. The findings of the research depicted a fuller picture of spiritual enlightenment experiences which may contribute to the current knowledge of religiosity and spirituality, as well as transpersonal psychology. The results suggest that the core components of spiritual enlightenment experiences include sensory clarity and disappearance experiences and realizations of nonduality.
Keywords
Introduction
Spiritual enlightenment is defined as absolute freedom from suffering in various cultural and religious traditions. With a capital “E,” spiritual Enlightenment is a major undertaking in a human being’s life (Smith & Waldman, 2016). Spiritual Enlightenment is commonly understood to be an ultimate, conscious condition of recognizing the Truth (the ultimate truth regarding wisdom and human being existence), Reality (that everything is empty and requires no attachment), and self (that there is no self indeed).
Commonly, spiritual Enlightenment encompasses elements such as being in a nondualist and non-self state, as well as letting go of cravings and attachments via the cultivation of spiritual wisdom and insight (MacKenzie, 2012). Spiritual Enlightenment is also defined as the final stage or culmination of a person’s spiritual path and highest level of consciousness since it is viewed as the ultimate state of spiritual development of human beings (Stein, 2019). Some academics incorporate related elements into the definition of spiritual Enlightenment, such as loving kindness, joy, tranquility, compassion (Bai & Cohen, 2014), authenticity and goodness (Bose, 1996), unified awareness, freedom from emotional suffering, and unconditional love for others (Nagle, 2004).
Religiously speaking, various religious traditions, such as Christianity, Taoism, Sufism, and others, all touched upon the teachings and instructions of the pathways to spiritual Enlightenment. Especially, Buddhism valued the states of Enlightenment as the primary indication of human suffering cessation (Wright, 2016). As spiritual Enlightenment is an ideal state that is difficult to achieve, scholars examined spiritual enlightenment, with a small “e,” to refer to a moderate level and the process to Enlightenment. As psychologists began to incorporate spirituality into mental health studies in the modern era, several constructions of the experiences of spiritual enlightenment emerged. For example, Watts (1958) defined satori-awakening and enlightenment as a flash of abrupt awareness. Waldron (1998) coined the term “transcendent experiences” to describe a spontaneous, extraordinary state-of-consciousness event that transcends established boundaries of knowledge and experiences. The concept of cosmic consciousness exemplified the ultimate level of human development and interconnectedness (Cowley, 1996). Other experiences of unusual grace, wisdom, or kindness toward authenticity have also occurred (Caplan, 1999). In recent years, scholars proposed that people who are able to dissolve the inherited bondage to suffering have reached a critical point (Tolle, 2004); enlightenment is the falling away of the sense of personal doership (Liquorman, 2000); and that nothing has any independent existence, each is only the reflection of everything else (Liquorman, 2000). 1 Although scholars have proposed various terms and assigned different names to people’s highest level of consciousness and it may have multiple facets, in our study, we combined the two disciplines of the Western analytical psychology and the Eastern traditions of meditation, defined enlightenment experiences as a type of consciousness transformation (Stein, 2019) that “individual’s awakening to the reality and truth (suffering comes from the illusion that there is a self to hold) and then let go of the clinging (to self and other desires).”
Prior attempts have been made to investigate the concept and construct of spiritual enlightenment experiences, including but not limited to the development of different scales. Nevertheless, there are several drawbacks to the current scale that may hinder their application to a broad community, particularly non-religious and non-spiritual populations. The Western developed scales may not apply to the Eastern cultural background. Furthermore, the majority of the scales were validated among college students, which may have skewed the results. As a result, the current study aims to develop and validate a newly designed spiritual enlightenment scale with items derived from interviews with Chinese meditation practitioners with spiritual enlightenment experiences. This scale aims to capture the spiritual enlightenment experiences and be applicable to a population with or without religious affiliation.
Literature review
Enlightenment in religion
In Eastern philosophy and religion (such as Taoism and Buddhism), Enlightenment is perceived as the highest level of consciousness a person can achieve throughout his or her individual life (Smith & Waldman, 2016). Nirvana, or liberation, is the main goal of most Eastern philosophies (Paul, 2008). For Buddhism, the ultimate goal of spiritual practicing is directed to spiritual enlightenment. The enlightened mind or the ground of being is the basis for further view and path (Adyashanti, 2003). The possibility of any group of people experiencing an enlightenment moment is supported by the Buddhist teaching that the nature of the Buddha lies within everyone (Adyashanti, 2000). Hinduism perceives Enlightenment as the state of self-realization and being at oneness and peace (Krausz, 2013; Subramuniya, 2011). Taoism was developed beginning in 300 BCE in China. In Taoism, Enlightenment indicates that the person has been in harmony and unity with the principles of nature (Kochmer, 2005).
Other religious traditions also have discussions about Enlightenment. Researchers of the Eastern Orthodox religion suggest that in similarity to Buddhism and Hinduism, Orthodox Christianity also “speaks of trans-rational stages in the ascent of the self towards union with the Godhead” (Markides, 2008, p. 183). Christian wisdom also supports the letting go of worldly passions and desires (Głaz, 2021). Sufism, as the psychological and spiritual domain of Islam, also discussed the human nature and the inner transformation method to finally achieve nondual self-realization (Boni, 2010). Sufism also proposed that individuals can reach to self-realization and Enlightenment.
Enlightenment in psychology
Psychological studies mainly focus on enlightenment experiences. Enlightenment experiences have been investigated by psychologists and psychiatrists from all over the world, on the basis of transpersonal psychology and the psychospiritual framework (James, 1902). Current transpersonal psychology holds the idea that enlightenment can be experienced by all individuals no matter how they identify themselves (R. W. Hood, 2009).
As is the case with Buddhism’s emphasis on “letting go,” transpersonal psychology proposes that it is possible and worthwhile for one to free up the mind from intertwined and attached conditions. It is one of the fundamental beliefs of transpersonal psychology that everyone can experience awakening or enlightenment (Canda & Furman, 2009; James, 1902; Lancaster, 2004; Louchakova, 2004; Stace, 1960; Wilber, 1985). Meanwhile, transpersonal psychology and spirituality studies acknowledge the multifaceted nature of human experiences (Lu & Lukoff, 2005) and focus on the study of the process of enlightenment—that is, on how to understand and cultivate human spiritual transformation in order to eventually help people move beyond ego, beyond personality and self-concepts and into understanding the nondual reality, and on how to transcend the limitations of consciousness of self to reach an enlightened state and see the true reality of non-self (Boni, 2010).
Western psychology translated some of the Eastern religious concepts about people’s states of mind into its system. In the modern society, psychology redefined the concept of spirituality, religiosity, and Enlightenment. Some presented the goal of spiritual awakening as self-acceptance rather than self-transcendence, wholeness rather than perfection (Gleig, 2010). The concept of Enlightenment in religious traditions, especially Asian wisdom, is a high level of consciousness that is beyond the material world, or mundane world, while in the modern world, especially Western psychology, enlightenment becomes secular and worldly.
Transpersonal psychologists raised several definitions of spiritual enlightenment and relevant experiences, which can be found in Supplementary Table 1. These definitions revealed that enlightenment could be understood as a state or a phenomenon. Some researchers explored it from the perspective of human experiences. Meanwhile, although different researchers used different terms to refer to enlightenment, these definitions revealed that they shared similarities and focused on characteristics such as nondual, non-self, non-perception, reality, truth, unity, and highest level of human consciousness (e.g. Goldstein, 2002; Watts, 1958).
Measurement of spiritual enlightenment
Scholars raised different approaches in examining spiritual enlightenment and relevant experiences (Supplementary Table 2). Basically, four essential types of scales are relevant to spiritual enlightenment. The first type of scale is the direct measurement of enlightenment, for example, the Enlightenment Scale (Boyd-Wilson & Walkey, 2015). The second type of scales focuses on measuring subjective mystical experiences, such as the Mystical Experience Scale (R. W. Hood, 1975) and Mystical Experience Questionnaire (MacLean et al., 2011). The third type focuses on the general spiritual transcendence, such as the Self-transcendence Scale (Levenson et al., 2005). The fourth type of scales aims at measuring one specific aspect of spirituality, such as the Non-Attachment Scale (Sahdra et al., 2010), the Foundational Value Scale (Jason et al., 2001), and the Temperament and Character Inventory (Cloninger et al., 1998). Hanley et al. (2018) developed the Nondual Awareness Dimensional Assessment to examine nondual traits and states of consciousness and its relationship with meditation practice. The two factors they found from their scale are self-transcendence and bliss.
The above reviewed scales may depict one particular facet of spiritual enlightenment but not the whole picture, for example, the Enlightenment Scale seemed to lack demonstration of the wisdom and insights that were emphasized in religious traditions. Besides, there are overlaps in items of scales that are trying to measure different constructs of the spirituality and understand enlightenment from perspectives of consciousness, subjective experiences, or specific constructs, which may deviate from the path of real enlightenment.
Among all the abovementioned scales, the Enlightenment Scale developed by Blinda Boyd-Wilson and Frank Walkey in 2015 seems to be the only one that directly put “Enlightenment” in the scale title. This scale ends up with 30 items that constitute a two-factor structure. The two factors are At Peace and Open-Hearted, and each involves 15 items. This scale has been validated among different populations, including students from the Open Polytechnic University and citizens of New Zealand (Boyd-Wilson & Walkey, 2015). Factor analysis of the scale showed the model fits for the one- and two-factor structures were excellent.
On the contrary, there are some limitations to the scale that seemed to be ignored by the authors. First, the authors seemed to fail to offer their understanding or conceptualization of Enlightenment, which made the scale seem confusing to people with or without religious affiliations. For example, the item in the factor “At Peace” which asked “I trust my future” seems to direct respondents to think about the future which is not supported by mindfulness practice of being in the present moment. Moreover, this scale focused more on actions and behaviors instead of experiences. For example, the item “I do not gossip about people in a mean or busybody way” seemed more focusing on the action or behavior of the participants, rather than focusing on the experiences part.
Current study
Based on the literature review, there seems lacking a consolidated scale to measure people’s experiences of enlightenment, especially the realization and insight part of the experiences emphasized in religious traditions and transpersonal psychology. To better depict individuals’ experiences of enlightenment, this article consists of two parts: a qualitative phenomenological study that aims at capturing the essences of people’s experiences of enlightenment and a quantitative study to establish and validate the Spiritual Enlightenment Experience Scale based on the themes of the first study. The implementation matrix of the two studies can be found in Supplementary Table 3.
Study 1—phenomenological interviews
Method
Non-probability purposive and snowball sampling were adopted considering the limited number of people who claimed that they had had enlightenment experiences. By following the principle of data saturation (Padgett, 1998), this study recruited 24 participants who were (1) aged between 18 and 70; (2) involved in at least one type of contemplative practice with at least 2 years’ experience (based on the criteria raised by Shapiro, 1992); (3) experienced in spiritual enlightenment and willing to describe it; (4) confident that their enlightenment experiences did not happen during a hallucination or delusion episode (to prevent the possibility of participants confusing enlightenment experiences with a psychological disorder); and (5) not seeking or receiving counseling services during the moment of enlightenment nor the interview period.
One-on-one semi-structured interviews were conducted among the 24 participants. The whole interview process was rehearsed with two experts as pilot tests of interview questions. After pilot tests, in each interview, following introduction to the objectives and process of the study, the research started with the interview prompts, including questions about self-introduction, spiritual path/experiences and its impact (details in Supplemental Appendix List 1). The interview process lasted from March 2017 to April 2018. Subjecting to the convenience of the participants, the interviews were conducted either online or face-to-face. To obtain the richest data relating to the enlightenment experiences, each participant was allowed to describe more than one enlightenment event so long as the experiences met the requirements of the inclusion criteria. The 24 interviews last around 40–94 min, with an average of 62 min.
After each interview, digitally recorded audio files were saved and transcribed by the researcher into texts. NVivo 11 (QSR International, Cambridge, MA; QSR International, 2017) was adopted to conduct the data analysis. After each interview, digitally recorded audio files were saved and transcribed by the researcher into texts. Significant nonverbal and paralinguistic conversations that related to enlightenment experiences were also noted and recorded. An independent person outside of this research area was hired to check the accuracy of the transcripts after signing a confidentiality agreement. When necessary, an expert in religious studies was consulted to ensure the accuracy of the transcription of specific religious terminology. Since some of the participants did not speak English, a translation process was conducted after the process of audio transcription. The translation was between the researcher and a qualified translator. Data analyses were conducted following Hycner’s (1985, pp. 280–294) 15-step analysis method in existential phenomenology studies (Supplementary Report 1).
Results
Demographic information of the participants in the study can be found in Supplemental Appendix Table 1. Among the 24 participants, 6 of them reported that the enlightenment experience was a one-time experience (ranges from 5 to 10 min), while the other 18 participants experienced many more times after the first encounter with enlightenment. Except for 2 participants who reported that they experienced the enlightenment experiences right after a near-death experience (they were recovered from the near-death events, so they assured the certainty of the differentiation between enlightenment experiences and near-death experiences), 1 participant experienced enlightenment during gardening after a long-day meditation, 1 encountered the enlightenment experiences during the shamanic journey, and 2 participants reported the experiences occurred right before their sleep at night after they practiced a whole day of yoga or qigong; all others (18 participants) experienced enlightenment during meditation practice, including insight meditation, mindfulness meditation, and compassion meditation. The duration of the enlightenment experiences lasted from 5 min to several days. All the 24 participants reported that the enlightenment experiences created a long-term change in participants’ view of the world and their place in the universe. All of them mentioned that once they experienced enlightenment, they reached to a new point where it was impossible to go back to their original view of the world.
After entering the moment of enlightenment, participants usually had two major clusters of the experiences: one cluster was strong sensory reactions or total emptiness and the absence of perceptions, including biological signals, emotional feelings, and paradoxical/mystical experiences, and the other cluster was increased wisdom and realizations, such as the sudden realization of suffering, reality, non-self, and nonattachment. Moreover, some participants also mentioned how they knew that that moment was a spiritual enlightenment compared with their previous moment of spiritual bypass. After coding, categorization, interpretation, and modification, the main cluster of nondual realization with four main themes, including intrapersonal wisdom, external inspiration, interpersonal insights, and interconnectedness, emerged to demonstrate the experiences of spiritual enlightenment (examples of participants’ report of enlightenment experiences are presented in Supplementary Table 4).
Nondual realizations
There were four main themes of experiences in this cluster: intrapersonal insights/wisdom, external inspiration, interpersonal insights, and interconnectedness in the cluster of realizations and insights; these present the core elements and components of enlightenment experiences. The intrapersonal insights mainly refer to people’s inner direct comprehension of the pure consciousness and non-self; the inspirational domain mainly indicates people’s understanding of the external world as illusion is constructed from outer triggers; interpersonal aspects mainly describe participants’ love and compassion with the surrounding environment and people; interconnectedness includes participants’ experiences of the interconnectedness between the body and mind, individuals and the environment, and total unification and nonduality.
Intrapersonal insights
An important aspect in considering participants’ experiences to be “enlightened” and “enlightening” is the feeling of intuitively raised insights happening unpredictably and suddenly. Participants would define their moment of enlightenment as the combination of insights and extraordinary feelings, with the insights in the center surrounded by the intensified feelings. Insights, wisdom, understanding, and realizations were interchangeable with nuances in participants’ narratives and mainly referred to the state of being fully aware and comprehensively understanding the nondual truth of the world.
Participants usually had various insights at different moments of spiritual enlightenment which showed their enlightenment experiences growth deeper in understanding the reality. For example, some participants reported that at one time, their essential realization was that “all phenomena are nothing but consciousness” while after comprehending the “truth” of reality, they further understood the root of their suffering, which they attribute to the function of the mind. There were a lot of times when they suffered because they “thought” that suffering was truth without realizing that it was their mind that perceived the reality as suffering and if their mind changed or transcended to another level, their feeling of suffering would automatically reduce.
Realizing the dominant role of the mind in their perception of the world set the foundation for the future realization of “non-self.” Participants saw the existence of the “self” and “ego” and then felt a breakthrough of the fixed concept of “self” and arrived at a level of “non-self.” This constitutes the process of “seeing mind” to “seeing self” and then to the seeing of “non-self.” During their fixed self-identity breakthrough, participants normally felt scared and freed at the same time. The scary aspect came from the breakdown of long-held beliefs of the passion of “I,” and the freedom came from the lack of attachment to the material world and further understanding of impermanence. When they realized that even the “self” was not real, participants understood that there was nothing that could last forever and there was no meaning attached to the materials of the mundane world, such as fortune, power, or fame. Moreover, participants agreed that only the present moment had meaning to their current life.
Inspiration internalization
Inspiration refers to the realizations that were inspired by witnessing external objects or events. External factors, such as objects of awareness, imaginations arise in the mind, or the surrounding environment may be triggers that lead to the appearance of spiritual enlightenment. Spiritual enlightenment was the process of internalization of the external inspirations and thus a transformation of the state of consciousness. One participant expressed that she saw the “truth” of life and death by recalling witnessing the death of her friend during compassion meditation. That image directly led her to the understanding of death and impermanence. Another participant went through the stage of experiencing suffering, realizing human beings were suffering and accepting the suffering by following the instructions of the teacher during a meditation session. There were also participants who understood the truth of dependent origination and impermanence by observing the changing forms of objects during meditation.
Interpersonal compassion
At other conditions of spiritual enlightenment, participants did not simply achieve insights and compassion for themselves, but also generated unconditional love and compassion for the external world. Compared with insights discussing seeing the self and non-self from a seemingly third-person objective angle, interpersonal compassion refers to participants seeing the external world from their inner eyes. A direct example is that intrapersonal insight may refer to participants’ love for themselves, while interpersonal refers to their love of other living beings.
After internal insights arising and the sense of ego being broken, participants’ original understanding of the world experiences a radical and dramatic change and the angle of seeing reality would change from the perspective of “self-centered” to “no-centered,” which means observing the world as a pervasive space without angle and with a sense of “unity.” Participants treasure this unity with automatically generated compassion. With the letting go of self-centered beliefs, participants thus found the answers to their previous questions of the meaning and purpose of life. Participants found that the world would function as such and it is totally meaningless to control anything, to fight for any material gain or to possess any impermanent objects.
Interconnectedness
The theme of interconnectedness has threefold meanings and levels. The first one is the interconnectedness between body and mind. Participants felt a link and connection between their bodily sensations and their mind. For example, one participant felt pain in their body from sitting meditation and this painfulness led to the mind’s observation of suffering. After being aware of the suffering and understanding the process and function of the painfulness, participants felt reduced bodily suffering because now the mind understood suffering and let go of its overattachment to uncomfortable feelings. Physical pain is still there, but the mind does not feel distressed or uncomfortable about the pain but accepts its existence of suffering. There is a cycle to bodily sensations and mental processing.
The next level of interconnectedness happens between the person and the environment. On this level, there are three types of unity between the person and the environment. One type is feeling the merge between “me” and the environment with a sense of self, such as the blurred boundaries between the body and surrounding objects. At this time, the participant still has a sense of “self,” and the “self” sees the process of merging. Another type is total unity without the concept of self or others. Participants may feel like there is no self nor environment; the self is totally immersed in the holistic world. The third type is the status between the previous two types. Participants felt a sense of self and a sense of unity. The feeling of individualization and holism are both very strong and clear. Like one participant said, “I was both the pulp of an apple and also the apple itself.”
The third level of interconnectedness refers to the connection between spiritual life and mundane life. At the end of the moment of spiritual enlightenment, participants feel it is necessary to apply spiritual realizations to their real life. There is no clear gap between spiritual and daily life. As one participant expressed, “I realized that the most difficult [thing] is living a normal daily life without attach[ment] to material objects (原来饭来张口困来眠，随缘度日不攀缘，这些才是更难的).” Another participant expressed a similar experience: “abhinna is not Tao, I can only realize the truth and Tao in daily life.” The separation between spiritual and daily life is the representation of overattachment to the concept and the separation between spiritual and daily life.
Spiritual enlightenment experiences and religious affiliations
Although this study did not purposely include participants from different religious traditions, the narratives of spiritual enlightenment experiences still showed patterns that were influenced by the religious guidance. For example, one word “God” was constantly mentioned by participants with Christianity belief while the word “Buddha” was not mentioned by participants of Buddhism. Instead, Buddhism participants were usually describing their experiences as emptiness that they felt total and extreme no content of the phenomena. On the contrary, both participants from Christianity and Buddhism would mention experiences of love, warmth, and transcendence with nuances that love may come from God in participants from Christianity and the love from nature in participants from Buddhism.
Study 2—scale development
Item pool generation of the Spiritual Enlightenment Experience Scale (SEES) was based on both deductive and inductive methods (DeVellis, 2017). Since the quality of items generated before validation depends on how the construct is defined, this study generated items based on a previous literature review, especially regarding the models proposed by researchers about the structures of spiritual enlightenment. Another important source of the items comes from clusters and themes summarized in Study 1, as an inductive method that targeted populations with relevant opinions linked to the topic; this was supported by other scholars.
Based on the data analysis by NVivo, and themes generated afterward, initially, there were 69 items formed from Study 1. The process of drawing the 69 items was as follows: in an Excel spreadsheet, the main experiences of participants’ enlightenment were summarized and listed in rows (in which we generated hundreds of rows from the interview transcripts), then we put the name of the participants on top of the spreadsheet as columns. We checked the statements if the participants have mentioned in their interviews. Then we generated the statement matrix. We calculated the number of participants who mentioned the same experiences and 69 statements were mentioned by at least two participants. Then we selected these 69 statements as items.
The 69-item scale was then tested in a pilot study with 56 participants. After a preliminary analysis of the item correlation, we deleted items that were highly correlated with other items, then the items from Study 1 were reduced to 37. After getting the 37 statements, we presented these items to experts who were not involved in the study before (Hardesty & Bearden, 2004), including 2 long-term meditation practitioners, 2 Buddhist monks, and 1 Taoism practitioner. They revised the 37 items and suggested adding 13 items which made the final 50 items. This 50-item SEES (in the format of a Likert-type scale rated from 1 (very disagree) to 5 (very agree)) was then presented to an expert in Sufism and the wordings of the scale were further modified. No items were added or deleted this time. Thus, the preliminary 50-item SEES was formed.
Data in this study were collected via online survey distribution. Convenient sampling was used. The SEES, spiritual-related scales, and other mental health scales were distributed online via WJX.cn (a commonly used survey distribution website in China), and the link was posted on different social media platforms (such as Weibo and Wechat) and several other religious group forums (mainly including Buddhism, Taoism, Christianity, Taoism, and Islam).
As shown in Table 1, in total 1213 participants responded to the full set of questionnaire, and after deleting participants with more than 10% missing data on the SEES, 1130 participants were included and 41 of them later finished the test–retest of SEES after 3 months. Except for demographic information, there were no missing values in SEES, as well as the mental health scales and spiritual scales. Ethical approval was obtained from research ethics board of the University of Hong Kong.
Scale validation participants’ demographic information.
EFA: exploratory factor analysis; CFA: confirmatory factor analysis.
Some participants have more than one religious beliefs.
Data analysis
To refine the newly formed scale, both factor analysis (including the principal components analysis (PCA), exploratory factor analysis (EFA) and confirmatory factor analysis (CFA)) and reliability tests (reliability test and test–retest analysis) were conducted (Kline, 2014). The full dataset were randomly split into two parts to conduct the EFA and CFA. For instruments without a previously defined structure, EFA analysis was applied in assessing factorial validity and its results can be used to indicate the strength of the correlations of each item. Items would be revised or removed for further analysis (Marsh & Richards, 1987). This study adopted the requirement that there should be at least three variables labeled as a factor (Tabachnick & Fidell, 2007). Factor loadings of at least .40 and correlation r of each factor of at least .30 were also adopted (Yong & Pearce, 2013).
After the EFA, the CFA was then conducted using a covariance matrix to see whether the items in the scale were structurally consistent with the a priori logic of the scale design and to explore the relationships between the observed measures or indicators and the latent variables or factors (Brown & Moore, 2012).
Several model fit indices were adopted in the scale validation process. It is worth noting that in this statistical analysis, the ratio of chi-square test score to the degrees of freedom (x2/df) was set to be less than 3 to satisfy model fit. Yet, this ratio was sensitive to sample size, therefore, this value would not be an issue if it did not show the required result when other fit indices were adequate (Cangur & Ercan, 2015). To examine the extent to which the observed measures represent the measurement model, squared multiple correlation (SMC) was also tested (Bollen, 1989). Moreover, average variances extracted (AVE) and composite reliabilities (CR) were also calculated to verify that each item measured was reliable in evaluating each construct. In order to ensure convergent validity, the AVE value should exceed .05 (Hair et al., 1998) and the CR value should exceed .7 (Hair et al., 2010).
With appropriate AVE and CR, convergent validity was conducted to examine whether the SEES is associated with other variables and measures, such as the Mysticism Scale and Daily Spiritual Experience Scale. To be more specific, predictive/nomological validity was used to test the empirical association between SEES and other scales. Based on the components of spiritual enlightenment experiences, the SEES seems to be conceptually related to mystical experiences and daily spiritual experiences, therefore, the most popular scales aiming to measure these two constructs, the Mysticism Scale and the Daily Spiritual Experience Scale, were used.
Incremental validity was also examined (Haynes & Lench, 2003). This was done by testing whether SEES (three factors and the overall score) was significantly associated with the outcome variables after first accounting for the variance explained by daily spiritual experiences and mystical experiences. Several demographic and religion-related variables, including age, gender, education level, job status (binary variable, measuring whether the participants were currently working), religious affiliation (categorical variable, including monotheist group, polytheist group, dual-religious group (both monotheist and polytheist), and non-religious group), and spiritual practice (binary variable, whether the participants were involved in any contemplative practices) were controlled.
Internal consistency reliability was the most widely used reliability method (Lankford & Howard, 1994) and it was assessed by Cronbach’s alpha (Bonett & Wright, 2015). The basic cut-off point of reliability is .7 (Panayides, 2013). To test whether the reliability of the SEES is reliable over time, test–retest reliability was analyzed. Temporal stability was revealed in this analysis; it applied scale items on two separate occasions and tested whether the scores were correlated (Forbush et al., 2013).
After EFA and CFA, a subgroup analysis was conducted to examine whether the scale could be applied to different religious groups. In our survey, we used a single-item question to measure participants’ religious affiliations: “Please select from below your religious affiliations.” Participants can freely choose between none, Christianity, Catholicism, Islam, Buddhism, Taoism, or multiple choices. Based on the responses from participants, we categorized them into monotheist group (people who only chose from Christianity, catholic, or Islam or any two or three of them), polytheist group (people who only chose from Buddhism or Taoism or both), non-religious group (people who chose none), and dual-religious group (people who are both monotheist and polytheist group, for example, Christianity and Buddhism or Christianity and Taoism).
Measurements for scale validation
The Hospital Anxiety and Depression Scale (HADS; Zigmond & Snaith, 1983) is a 14-item 4-point scale comprising two subscales that aim to assess anxiety and depression symptoms experienced in the past week. The Chinese-Cantonese version of the HADS showed good internal consistency (.86 for the full scale, .82 for the depression subscale, and .77 for the anxiety subscale) and external validity (Leung et al., 1999). Results based on the data of the current study also showed good reliability (Cronbach’s alpha ranged from .77 to .80) and satisfactory validity (Comparative fit index (CFI) = .94, Tucker–Lewis Index (TLI) = .86, root mean square error of approximation (RMSEA) = .077, standardized root mean square residual (SRMR) = .066).
Stagnation Scale (ST; Ng et al., 2012) is a 16-item self-report scale that comprises three factors designed to measure a Traditional Chinese medicine diagnosis-stagnation syndrome. The SS demonstrated a robust factor structure, and the CFA revealed a good fit of the three-factor model (CFI = .95; RMSEA = .077; SRMR = .043). The scale also showed good internal consistency (ranged from .82 to .91). Higher scores indicate a higher level of stagnation. Innamorati et al., (2015) validated the stagnation scale in 310 medication-overuse headache patients in Italy. In this study, the Cronbach’s alpha of SS was .98, CFI = .98, TLI = .97, RMSEA = .069, SRMR = .021.
The Mysticism Scale (MS; R. W. Hood, 1975) was developed to verify the existence of Stace’s (1960) introvertive and extrovertive dimensions of mystical phenomenology (R. W. Hood et al., 2001). This scale included 32 items which are grouped into eight four-item styles and higher scores indicate more mystical phenomena. The scale achieved acceptable internal consistency and reasonable construct validity (R. W. Hood, 1975). This scale was also validated in China and had Chinese version of the scale (Chen et al., 2011). Yet, in our study, after conducting CFA, we found the full scale did not show a robust structure. Instead, the subscales without reverse items showed a robust structure (Cronbach’s alpha = .93, CFI = .98, TLI = .97, SRMR = .025, RMSEA = .075). Therefore, in this study, we only used 16 items without reverse coding. Analysis with the full version can be obtained upon request from the corresponding author.
Daily Spiritual Experience Scale (DSES; Underwood & Teresi, 2002) is a 16-item scale aiming to understand the experiential components of religiousness and spirituality. Higher scores indicate more spiritual experiences (Underwood & Teresi, 2002). The DSES demonstrated good internal consistency reliability across various samples with an internal consistency of .90. The DSES was validated among a Chinese population (Ng et al., 2009). In this study, the Cronbach’s alpha of DSES was .95, CFI = .92, TLI = .90, RMSEA = .098, and SRMR = .049.
Perceived Stress Scale (PSS; Cohen et al., 1983) is a 10-item self-report scale measuring life stress. It is rated on a 5-point scale that ranges from never to very often. The Chinese version of the PSS demonstrated good levels of validity and reliability (Ng, 2013). In this study, the Cronbach’s alpha of PSS was .88, CFI = .97, TLI = .95, RMSEA = .069, and SRMR = .036.
Results
EFA
The EFA sample was used to conduct the analysis in order to identify the latent variables or variables structure contained in the original 50-item scale. The Kaiser–Meyer–Olkin Measure of Sampling Adequacy (KMO) analysis of the EFA sample yielded a result of .97 (Kaiser, 1974) and the Bartlett’s Test of Sphericity indicated an approximate x2(1225) = 18999.035, p < .001, which strongly supports the suitability of the correlation matrices for structure detection.
For the 50 items in the SEES, after PCA and EFA, by discarding items one by one and then re-evaluating the remaining items with a further PCA (Todorov et al., 2018), as well as deleting items based on item-total correlations and inter-item correlations, 20 items were extracted with no double loadings, lower factor loadings, or high inter-item correlations (average inter-item correlation was .425). A promax rotation was then undertaken on the EFA sample in order to investigate the structures. The scree plot and eigenvalue result showed that the change in the eigenvalues between the extraction of the third and fourth factor was significant.
The 20 items that fell into the three factors with factor loadings ranged from .60 to .86 and explained 63% of the total variance. The coefficient alpha was .93 for the whole scale and .93, .87, and .84 for the three factors of nonduality, sensory disappearance, and sensory clarity, respectively, which shows satisfied reliability (Table 2). The AVE values were .53, .57, and .59 for the nonduality, sensory disappearance, and sensory clarity factors, respectively, all of which were beyond the .50 threshold. The CR were .93, .87, and .81 for each factor, which all exceed .70. These indices showed that this scale has strong evidence of reliability and validity of the latent constructs.
Exploratory factor analysis (EFA) of SEES.
CFA: confirmatory factor analysis; SMC: squared multiple correlation; AVE: average variance extracted.
Bold values: p < 0.05.
The EFA result shows that Factor 1, nonduality, consisted of 12 items that all referred to the experiences of nonduality. Factor 2, sensory disappearance, consisted of five items that related to transcendence and emptiness of sensory experiences, including the experiences of time transcendence and space transcendence. Factor 3, sensory clarity, included three items that described a heightened level of sensory experiences. The three factors are positively correlated with each other. The correlation matrix table can be found in Supplemental Appendix Table 2.
Test–retest reliability
The test–retest reliability analysis among 41 participants after 3 months of the first survey showed a solid intraclass correlation coefficient (ICC) of .93 (p < .0001) and the 95% confidence interval for the ICC population falls between .91 and .96, indicating that the SEES score can remain stable over time and is not heavily contaminated by random error. The ICC for the three factors of sensory clarity, sensory disappearance, and nondual scale was .64, .58 and .78, respectively. The SEES exhibited satisfied stability and test–retest reliability.
Confirmatory factor analysis
The CFA was conducted in the other half sample of 565 participants. The modification indices were used to identify misfit factor patterns that constrained the whole scale (Reise et al., 2000). Of the remaining 20 items as kept in the EFA, three fell on the factor of sensory clarity and five items fell on the factor of sensory disappearance. The other 12 items fell on the factor of nonduality. The model fit of the three-factor SEES was acceptable: χ2(167) = 432.73, p < .001, RMSEA = .053, SRMR = .042, and CFI = .96, TLI = .96. The table can be found in Supplemental Appendix Table 3.
Convergent and discriminate validity
After confirming the factor structure of the model, we continued to examine whether (1) the newly developed SEES was only modestly associated with other predictors, such as depression and anxiety (discriminant validity), and (2) SEES demonstrated theoretically consistent associations with the outcome variables (convergent validity). Table 3 shows that all factors of the SEES scale, as well as the overall scores, were significantly and positively correlated with the DSES (r = .338 to .470) and MS (r = .347 to .522), suggesting that a greater level of spiritual enlightenment was associated with a higher score of DSES and MS. Moreover, the sensory clarity and the sensory disappearance factor were significantly correlated with all factors of stagnation scale (ST) and PSS (r = .166 to .360), except the perceived efficacy subscale of the PSS, with which they were significantly negatively correlated (r = −.271 and r = −.268, respectively). The sensory disappearance factor was also significantly positively correlated with HADS. These results suggesting a higher level of sensory experiences were associated with a higher level of stagnation and perceived stress. The nonduality factor was negatively and significantly correlated with HADS and perceived self-efficacy (r = −.141 to −.323) and positively significantly correlated with perceived stress (r = .123), suggesting a higher level of nonduality experiences was associated with a lower level of anxiety and depression.
Convergent and Discriminant Validity of SEES factors and SEES.
HADS_A: Hospital Anxiety and Depression Scale, Subscale of measuring anxiety; HADS_D: Hospital Anxiety and Depression Scale, Subscale of measuring depression; HADS: Hospital Anxiety and Depression Scale; Stagnation: Stagnation Scale; St_Overattach, St_Obstruction, St_Inhibition: subscales of stagnation measuring overattachment, obstruction and inhibition, respectively; MS: Hoods’ Mysticism Scale; PSS: Perceived Stress Scale; DSES = Daily Spiritual Experience Scale; SEES: Spiritual Enlightenment Experience Scale. PSS_PH, PSS_PE are subscales of perceived stress scale, measuring perceived helplessness and perceived efficacy, respectively.
p < .001.
The overall score of SEES was positively associated with MS, DSES, ST, and PSS (r = .168 to .522). These results showed that SEES is reliably associated with a conceptually meaningful outcome variable, DSES, and MS in predictable directions. Moreover, the result also indicated that enlightenment experiences were related to the established measures of psychological constructs.
Incremental validity
In order to examine the incremental validity of the SEES over the DSES and the MS, a two-step hierarchical regression analysis was performed for each criterion. The DSES and MS were first entered in the model, and subsequently the three factors of SEES were then entered (Table 4). Another hierarchical regression analysis was performed with the total score of the SEES (Table 5).
Hierarchical Regressions of the Spiritual Enlightenment Experience Scale predicting mental health indicators above daily spiritual experiences and mystical experience in testing incremental validity.
Control variables: age, gender, education level, job status, religious affiliation and spiritual practice. HADS = Hospital Anxiety and Depression Scale, in total 14 items rated from 0 to 3 with higher score indicating higher level of anxiety and depression. The two subscales included anxiety subscale and depression subscale. MS = Mysticism Scale, in total 32 items for the original scale ranged from 1 to 5 with higher score indicating higher level of mystical experience. After confirmatory factor analysis, we found that the scale construct did not fit well with all the items. We further conducted analysis with items that are not reverse coded, and the result showed robust structure (CFI = .98, TLI = .97, SRMR = .025, RMSEA = .075). Therefore, in this study, we only used the 16 items without reverse coding. DSES = Daily Spiritual Experience Scale, in total 16 items with 15 items rated from 1 to 6 and the last item rated from 1 to 4. Higher score indicates higher level of daily spiritual experience. EE_SC = The subscale, sensory clarity of the Spiritual Enlightenment Experience Scale, with 3 items rated from 1 to 5 with higher score indicating higher level of experiencing the five senses which become extremely clear and transcendence during enlightenment. EE_SD = The subscale, sensory disappearance of the Spiritual Enlightenment Experience Scale, with 5 items rated from 1 to 5 with higher score indicates higher level of experiencing the five senses become empty and void during enlightenment. EE_ND = The subscale, nonduality of the Spiritual Enlightenment Experience Scale, with 12 items rated from 1 to 5 with higher score indicating higher level of realization of nonduality during enlightenment. EE = The Spiritual Enlightenment Experience Scale, with 20 items rated from 1 to 5 with higher score indicating higher level of spiritual enlightenment experience. CI: confidence interval; SE: standard error; PSS: Perceived Stress Scale.
Hierarchical Regressions of the Spiritual Enlightenment Experience Scale predicting mental health indicators above daily spiritual experiences, and mystical experience in testing incremental validity.
Control variables: age, gender, education level, job status, religious affiliation and spiritual practice. HADS = Hospital Anxiety and Depression Scale, in total 14 items rated from 0 to 3 with higher score indicating higher level of anxiety and depression. The two subscales included anxiety subscale and depression subscale. MS = Mysticism Scale, in total 32 items for the original scale ranged from 1 to 5 with higher score indicating higher level of mystical experience. After confirmatory factor analysis, we found that the scale construct did not fit well with all the items. We further conducted analysis with items that are not reverse coded, and the result showed robust structure (CFI = .98, TLI = .97, SRMR = .025, RMSEA = .075). Therefore, in this study, we only used the 16 items without reverse coding. DSES = Daily Spiritual Experience Scale, in total 16 items with 15 items rated from 1 to 6 and the last item rated from 1 to 4. Higher score indicates higher level of daily spiritual experience. EE = The Spiritual Enlightenment Experience Scale, with 20 items rated from 1 to 5 with higher score indicating higher level of spiritual enlightenment experience. CI: confidence interval; SE: standard error; PSS: Perceived Stress Scale.
Table 4 shows that DSES and MS accounted for significant variance in all mental health factors, including HADS, PSS, and ST. DSES was positively associated with HADS (β = .23, p < .001), and ST (β = .32, p < .001) and MS were significantly associated with PSS (β = .27, p < .001) and ST (β = .17, p < .001).
The addition of the three SEES factors in the regression model significantly increased the overall variance explained for HADS (R2 change = .12, p < .001), PSS (R2 change = .01, p = .002), and ST (R2 change = .05, p < .001). After the three factors of SEES were entered in the model, results showed that sensory clarity was only marginally associated with HADS (β = −.07, p = .057). The sensory disappearance was positively significantly associated HADS (β = .32, p < .001), PSS (β = .13, p = .002), and ST (β = .20, p < .001). On the contrary, nonduality was negatively associated with HADS (β = −.37, p < .001) and ST (β = −.28, p < .001). In terms of the total score of SEES, it was negatively associated with HADS (β = −.14, p < .001) and ST (β = −.09, p = .005).
Other characteristics of spiritual enlightenment experiences from the survey
In the full set of the questionnaire, some survey questions were included to examine the certainty, frequency, and intensity of the enlightenment experiences. Results revealed that participants were fairly confident about their enlightenment experiences, regardless of whether it was at the moment of enlightenment or when recalling that moment. The results were represented in the question “From 1 to 10, please rate your certainty toward your enlightenment experiences” (at that moment and right now). Results yielded a mean score of 8.00 (SD = 2.04) and 8.02 (SD = 1.91), respectively. Participants also reported that they experienced moments of enlightenment quite frequently. In the question “From 1 to 10, please rate the frequency of enlightenment happening in the past 3 months, past year and from the first time until now,” the mean frequency was 7.26 in the past 3 months, 7.3 in the past year, and 7.31 from the first time until now. In the question, “From 1 (very low intensity) to 5 (very high intensity), how do you rate the intensity of your enlightenment experiences?,” the mean score was 2.89 (SD = 1.19, 95% confidence interval = 2.82, 2.96). These results suggest that enlightenment experiences frequently arise with moderate intensity.
Subgroup analysis
Supplemental Appendix Table 4 shows the EFA and CFA sample score on the mental health and spiritual experiences scales, and Supplemental Appendix Tables 5 to 11 show the information and correlation matrix of subgroups of participants who reported different religious affiliations. From Supplemental Appendix Table 5, the dual-religious group (participants who reported that they had faith in both monotheistic and polytheism religious traditions) reported the highest score on HADS, PSS, DSES, ST, and EE. Meanwhile, the monotheistic group showed a mild level of anxiety and depression (M = 15.18, SD = 6.11), the lowest level of perceived stress (M = 21.95, SD = 4.58), the highest level of mystical experience (M = 60.67, SD = 11.52), and the lowest level of stagnation (M = 90.64, SD = 40.72). The monotheistic group did not show significant differences on these scales compared with the non-monotheistic group, except on DSES. These results indicate that the dual-religious group suffered the most from mental health issues and reached the highest level of spiritual experiences, while the monotheistic group also reached a relatively high level of spiritual experiences but with better mental health status.
Summary statistics for the EE were also examined across the subgroup samples with different religious affiliations. The mean score for the EE total score ranged from 75.14 to 79.94. Of all the subgroups, the dual-religious group reported the highest EE score (M = 79.94, SD = 15.25), while the non-religious group reported the lowest score (M = 75.14, SD = 13.64). The dual-religious group also reported the highest intensity of enlightenment experiences.
Supplemental Appendix Tables 7 to 11 show that for the different religious group of participants, the associations between mental health constructs and spiritual experiences vary. For monotheists and dual-religious participants, although MS was not significantly associated with HADS (p > .05), MS was significantly associated with PSS and ST. The DSES showed a similar pattern. Different from these populations, for people who are polytheists or non-religious, MS was significantly associated with HADS, PSS, and ST. Among all groups of participants, nonduality was negatively associated with HADS. Nonduality was only negatively associated with ST in monotheists and non-religious groups instead of the other two groups. Except for monotheists, nonduality was positively associated with PSS.
Discussion
The mixed-method research examined individuals’ lived experiences of spiritual enlightenment by phenomenological interview and the constructs and measures of the enlightenment experiences by scale development and validation. Study 1 found that the two clusters of the enlightenment experiences were sensory feelings and nondual understandings. For the cluster of nondual understandings, the four themes were intrapersonal insights, inspiration internalization, interpersonal compassion, and interconnectedness. After transferring these themes into items and scale validation, a three-factor structure of the SEES, including nonduality, sensory clarity, and sensory disappearance, was revealed.
The reports from both the qualitative and quantitative study (Supplemental Appendix Table 6) participants revealed that the frequency and intensity of spiritual enlightenment could vary and the enlightenment experiences can emerge regardless of participants’ cultural background and religious affiliations. The cross-religious characteristics of enlightenment experiences support that almost all religious traditions set the goal of helping the adherents go on the path to human liberation (Shin, 2017). It also reflected the thoughts of essentialism (or perennial philosophy) that although the visions, locutions, revelations of mystics come from various descriptions and interpretations of cultures and traditions, there exists a common core of experiences that is invariant and unaffected by each person’s environment and historical situations, no matter the social status or religious commitments (Hollenback, 2000; C. Hood, 2006; Stace, 1960). Meanwhile, the different frequency and intensity of spiritual enlightenment in different groups support the contextualism thoughts, which value the reciprocity of the relationship between context and content, interpretation and experiences, and religious doctrine and religious experiences (Hollenback, 2000). This study reveals that although enlightenment experiences are across different religions (essentialism), the presentation of enlightenment experiences is still influenced by religious teachings (contextualism). This study provided empirical evidence in understanding the two different schools of understanding spiritual experiences.
The intensity of the enlightenment experiences was reflected in participants’ sensory feelings during the enlightenment moment in Study 1 and the two scale factors sensory clarity and sensory disappearance in Study 2. The findings are consistent with existing research. For example, Taylor and Egeto-Szabo (2017) demonstrated that low-intensity enlightenment experiences feature a sense of heightened awareness during which one’s surroundings become more real with the qualities of “is-ness” and “alive-ness,” whereas medium-intensity enlightenment experiences include a powerful sense of oneness. High-intensity enlightenment experiences, according to the authors, cause the material world to “dissolve” and individuals to feel the essence of both the universe and their own being as if he or she is the universe (Taylor & Egeto-Szabo, 2017). Participants in the present research reported experiencing heightened physical and sensory perception (sensory clarity factor in the SEES) and oneness with the surroundings and dissolving of material world (nonduality factor in the SEES). Yet participants in the current study did not mention the experience of “I am the universe.” One possible reason may be that the participants felt more non-self which has no “I.”
The concept of “I” is essential in enlightenment experiences, and the importance is reflected in Study 1 of the cluster of nondual realizations and the nonduality factor of the SEES in Study 2. The qualitative findings of this study indicate that people’s understanding of the self is a spectrum and that this is the result of a flow of consciousness. Sometimes, people may feel that the existence of the self can set the foundation for future understanding of the non-self. Sometimes, people may feel a separation from the self as if they are watching a movie about the activities of the self. In addition, sometimes people wholly feel a moment of non-self or nonduality wherein the self is physically or psychologically merged with the environment. This experience of the non-self can disappear, and people return to the feeling of the self. The moving and transient nature of the experiences of the “self” indicates the impermanence of the concept of self. These findings are consistent with previous philosophical and transpersonal psychological discussions of self and nonduality (e.g. Tuske, 2013) with detailed descriptions of the types of understandings.
Participants’ understanding of non-self and nonduality was reflected in the cluster of nondual realization, especially in the four themes in Study 1 and the nondual factor in Study 2. As core components of the enlightenment experiences, these findings are in accordance with religious instructions that emphasize the importance of spiritual wisdom—wisdom stemming from understanding the truth of reality (e.g. Wright, 2016). Religious teachings, especially Buddhist teachings, value wisdom and cultivation of wisdom as core tenets and required qualities for enlightenment (Wright, 2016). According to such beliefs, people who only experience transcendental feelings without wisdom may not be experiencing true enlightenment. Another vital aspect that accompanies wisdom is love. The concept of “love” in the theme of interpersonal compassion reported by participants reflected that love in here is not the possessive fixation on an object but the benevolence (Adyashanti, 2004). Unlike describing the affection between spouses or lovers in a relationship, this type of unconditional love involves the total absence of divisive and hateful thoughts, open-heartedness, clear-mindedness, and acceptance (Adyashanti, 2000; Goleman, 1985; Hixon, 1978; Tolle, 1999).
Generally speaking, the participants in this study found describing the concept of unity, nonduality, and interconnectedness in enlightenment experiences to be challenging. There is debate about whether such experiences are pure experiences unrelated to cultural factors or experiences shaped by language and previous education. One notable finding from the present research is that although participants found it difficult to use language to describe what happened during the enlightenment moment, they were ultimately at least able to elaborate on their experiences simply or descriptively. One explanation for their struggles is that the moment of enlightenment is beyond the system of current socially constructed words and phrases because enlightenment is intuitive (Taylor, 2012). Another is that the current language system is based on the center of the self. During the moment of spiritual enlightenment, there is no self, and people lose their familiar perspective; consequently, they cannot fully describe the moment. Subsequently, after the moment ends, their normal base of the “self” returns, and their language to relate to the self also returns.
It is worth noting that although the SEES was significantly associated with MS and DSES, yet the hierarchical regression suggested different directions of relationships. The significant variance changes of the model indicated the different constructs of DSES, MS, and SEES. The major difference between DSES and SEES was that DSES constantly used the word “God” and may not be fully applicable to the participants in the current study. Several aspects are prominent in terms of the difference between MS and SEES. According to James (1902), mysticism experiences included people feeling the need to surrender to a higher power. However, for spiritual enlightenment experiences as participants described in this study, they were trying to seek with an open heart to accept the coming of awakening. This attitude is leaning more toward the guidance of Buddhism which states that the “Buddha nature” is something that people must find and not something that a higher power can give.
Another crucial point is that mysticism usually stops at unity (Underhill, 2002). Most research in the West has emphasized the importance of nonduality, unity, connectedness, and union with God for mysticism experiences. However, enlightenment experiences described in this study are developed more from a core of wisdom, with the most important aspects of spiritual enlightenment being unity and interconnectedness. Experiencers go further to understand impermanence and emptiness after dissolving of the self and reaching unity with the environment. To be more specific, although both mystical experiences and enlightenment experiences have the components of unity and interconnectedness, enlightenment experiences in this study described by participants went further and extended to a more in-depth level of unification (Wright, 2016).
Hick (2010) argued that the mystical type of unity is not “real” unity, in which man actually becomes God, but “a union of wills in which the human is fully conformed to the divine” (p. 23) because there is a plurality of natures and difference of substance in the fundamental Christian belief (Butler, 1967). Practically speaking, when people feel unity with God during a mystical moment such as during prayer, it is their individual human consciousness that is completely filled with the feeling of the divine presence, and thus, the feeling of unity is not because they are of one identity with God but “a state of consciousness so filled with the presence of God that there is no vacant corner of it detachedly observing the experience” (Woods, 1980, p. 385). This was slightly different from the descriptions from the participants in this study.
Drawing from the abovementioned discussion of mystical experiences, the mystical experiences of unity is more of a unity with God, whereas unity in enlightenment experiences are more of experiences of interconnectedness of the mind and body, as well as a disappearance of the sense of self. This difference was shown in the last theme of the qualitative analysis. Although participants of this study were not purposively chosen from different religious backgrounds, the participants from a Christianity tradition constantly discussed the unity with God and receiving the love and warmth from God. Meanwhile, participants from Buddhism were more experienced on the dissolving of the sense of self, without being unity with a higher divinity, but in a level of awareness with total emptiness. Although there is no specific wording of “God” in the MS, the topic of God had a significant connotation in the scale under the Chinese context where people had the inclination of relating mysticism, “greater” and “sacred” to “God” or “Deity.”
From the results shown in Tables 3 and 4, it was unexpected that after controlling the confounding factors, the sensory disappearance factor was positively associated with HADS, ST, and PSS, although the nonduality factor was negatively associated with HADS and ST, and the total score of SEES was negatively associated with HADS and ST. This result contradicts previous studies that spiritual experiences function as a pathway to psychological well-being (e.g. Streib et al., 2021; Underwood & Teresi, 2002). Although unexpected from our hypothesis and different from previous literature, scholars do support that researchers rarely discuss negative emotions and distress associated with meditative practices (e.g. Adyashanti, 2002, 2006). The results of our study raised an opportunity for the discussion of the mental health issues accompanied by spiritual experiences. There are four possible reasons that may lie behind this phenomenon. First, it is possible that the group of participants who were suffering from mental health issues, including depression, anxiety, stress, and stagnation, were more motivated to pursue spiritual enlightenment as a coping strategy for suffering liberation. Second, it is also possible that people who experience sensory disappearance became more sensitive to their inner world and thus observed more symptoms of depression, anxiety, stress, and stagnation, primarily when the stagnation scale focused more on individuals’ somatic symptoms. Third, it is also possible that people who have a higher score on the sensory disappearance have more expectations of themselves, and their goal of the contemplative practice was to reach a complete level of nonattachment. Thus, they “overrated” their level of clinging and attachment, which is the core measurement of the ST. On the contrary, people with a higher score on the nonduality factor transcended the issues measured in ST. Therefore, the nonduality factor had a near-zero correlation with ST. Fourth, individuals who scored high on the sensory disappearance factor may be more sensitive to societal issues, and the compassion raised during the enlightenment made them notice more traumatized events that made them feel anxious, depressed, and stressed. Other published work from this project also explained this phenomenon from the perspective of spiritual bypass (Wang et al., 2021).
Another interesting finding from this study was that there were around 10.0% of participants were dual-religious and compared with monotheist and polytheist group of participants, dual-religious group scored the highest on HADS, PSS, DSES, ST, and SEES. These data highlighted the relatively unique phenomenon that in East Asia, religious identities are not exclusively delineated as is the case in Western models (Oostveen, 2019) and just as Yang (2018) stated that in the Judeo-Christian context, it is assumed that religious identity is exclusive, that every religious person is a member of a local congregation that is part of a denomination or a distinct religion, and that regular activities include weekly attendance at a corporate worship service. However, East Asian religions have distinct characteristics: Religious identity is not necessarily exclusive, religious practice is not based on a weekly rhythm, individual devotion or practice is at least as important as corporate rituals, and the boundaries of religiosity and secularity are ambiguous or blurred. (p.6)
Our study further depicted the characteristics of these groups of people: they may suffer more from mental health issues and thus seeking all types of religious teachings or practices and thus more prone to report spiritual experiences.
Limitations and implications
There are several limitations to the current study. The sample size and sample collection method may have constrained the generalizability of the results to other populations. Moreover, the qualitative study relied on the participants’ recollection, which may have led to recall bias affecting the reliability of the results. Furthermore, cross-sectional studies cannot infer causal relationships, and longitudinal studies are required to measure the long-term effects of meditation. Participants recruited for scale development mainly consist of non-religious people, and more exploration on the dual-religious population is needed.
One of the primary aims of this research was to see whether the essence of enlightenment experienced can be captured. According to James (1902), religious experiences are ineffable. In addition, Josipovic (2010) noted that dual language may not be able to fully describe a nondual experience. Consequently, no words may exist that can best express an individual’s feelings during an enlightenment experience. When people are raised in a world that is conceptualized as either objective or subjective, how people can elaborate on nondual experiences is difficult to solve. In addition, this research mainly relied on participants’ self-reports and memories to recall their past enlightenment experiences. The accuracy of these descriptions depends on the accuracy of the individual’s memory. Moreover, given the participants’ reports of this seemingly unusual experience, such as floating and inner voice, researchers should pay more attention to differentiate such feelings from delusion or illusion (Głaz, 2014).
Regarding scale development, considering existing criticism on the reliability and validity of self-report questionnaires for studying meditation, mindfulness, and spirituality (Goldberg et al., 2016; Leigh et al., 2005) and the impact of social desirability, consistency effects, and language issues embedded in different spiritual traditions and scales (e.g. Sauer et al., 2013; Van Dam et al., 2012), other types of measuring methods, including third-person evaluation and neurophenomenological tools, can be applied for future investigations. Regardless of the limitations, this study is one of the very few attempts to explore the concept of the spiritual enlightenment experiences with both qualitative and quantitative research method, especially from the perspective of religion and transpersonal psychology. This scale can be easily used in clinical settings and be applied by social workers, other healthcare professionals, or therapists to measure clients’ spiritual experiences and spiritual levels. When clients suffer from trauma or difficult life situations, spirituality and meditation can be possible ways to function as healing methods and promote psychological wellbeing. In addition, the concept of spiritual enlightenment has been commonly used as the philosophy behind interventions in end-of-life care (Daaleman et al., 2014), smoking and alcohol cessation (Galanter et al., 2014), and recovery (Green et al., 1998), and so on. The scale developed from this study may be a promising research and clinical tool in future multidisciplinary fields.
The spiritual enlightenment experiences apply to the current discussion of human spiritual development and what a rich human life can be. In addition, the findings of the investigation may contribute to the debate of Eastern and Western spiritual practice such as prayer and meditation practice, adult lifelong learning, insight cultivation, and regenerating old wisdom. Meanwhile, this research tried to offer some evidence or insights for current development and discussion of human consciousness and make up for the area of new technology development and neuroscience research. Future studies could incorporate other research methods using advanced technological devices, such as ecological momentary assessment methods on mobile phones to record their enlightenment experiences on a real-time basis (yet the technology should be used with caution to not intervene in the normal practice of participants). Other methods, such as daily diary, may also be applied to capture their enlightenment experiences as soon as they occur.
The topic of self and non-self, non-dual had all been discussed, and this research may suggest some new directions for psychological and spiritual healing, psychotherapy, or transpersonal counseling. Multidisciplinary discussions in this research may contribute to the further exploration of the combination of transpersonal psychology, spirituality, and religious study.
Conclusion
This mixed-method study used phenomenological interview and scale development methods to examine the constructs of enlightenment experiences and the measurement of the experiences among the Chinese population. The qualitative study revealed that enlightenment experiences include sensory feelings and realizations of nonduality. During the moment, there are insights of nonduality in the intrapersonal, interpersonal, inspirational, and interconnected domains. Study Two established a three-factor scale (sensory clarity, disappearance, and nonduality) to measure enlightenment experiences. A higher score indicates a higher level of enlightenment experiences. The higher score on the sensory clarity scale refers to the participants having higher experiences with their sensory experiences, and the higher score of sensory disappearance denotes the participants become closer to sensory emptiness. The higher level of nonduality suggests the participants become closer to enlightenment, that is, understanding non-self and not clinging to self and desires. The EFA and CFA showed a robust construction of the scale. Future studies shall validate this scale in a more diverse population from different cultural backgrounds.
Supplemental Material
sj-docx-1-prj-10.1177_00846724221121686 – Supplemental material for The experiences of spiritual enlightenment: A mixed-method study of the development of a Spiritual Enlightenment Experience Scale
Supplemental material, sj-docx-1-prj-10.1177_00846724221121686 for The experiences of spiritual enlightenment: A mixed-method study of the development of a Spiritual Enlightenment Experience Scale by Qi Wang, Xiaochen Zhou and Siu-man Ng in Archive for the Psychology of Religion/Archiv Für Religionpsychologie
Supplemental Material
sj-docx-2-prj-10.1177_00846724221121686 – Supplemental material for The experiences of spiritual enlightenment: A mixed-method study of the development of a Spiritual Enlightenment Experience Scale
Supplemental material, sj-docx-2-prj-10.1177_00846724221121686 for The experiences of spiritual enlightenment: A mixed-method study of the development of a Spiritual Enlightenment Experience Scale by Qi Wang, Xiaochen Zhou and Siu-man Ng in Archive for the Psychology of Religion/Archiv Für Religionpsychologie
Footnotes
Acknowledgements
This manuscript is modified from the first author’s PhD thesis under the supervision of the corresponding author. We would like to thank the two reviewers for taking the time and effort necessary to review the manuscript. We sincerely appreciate all valuable comments and suggestions, which helped us to improve the quality of the manuscript.
Ethical statement
Ethical approval was obtained as per the standard procedure indicated by the Human Research Ethics Committee in the University of Hong Kong.
Funding
The author(s) received no financial support for the research, authorship, and/or publication of this article.
Informed Consent
Written consents were obtained from participants before qualitative interview and quantitative survey response collection.
Supplemental material
Supplemental material for this article is available online.
Notes
References
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