Moving overseas, having children, changing jobs: viewed impersonally, these events are just demographic categories, unexciting transitions represented by the checkboxes of a tax return. Yet, when experienced, they can create internal revolutions of perspective. Such events can be revelatory, opening up possibilities for momentous self-change. This element of the extraordinary buried in what seems, from the outside, to be perfectly ordinary, maps a path to non-religious spiritual revelation. In the context of modern secular life, such revelation is a source of meaning, authenticity, and wisdom.
We propose to develop an empirically informed philosophical account of non-religious revelation, spiritual transformation and meaningfulness in the context of transformative life events. Transformation creates new abilities to value, giving one new appreciation of the nature of reality and one’s place within it, teaching one humility, and leading to a reconstruction of self. Such self-rebuilding is foundational to meaning-making and spiritual awakening, whether religious or non-religious. To the degree it is “co-authored” with another, rebuilding oneself through transformation may also expand our capacities for empathy with others.
An important element of the project is its generality, as revelation and its subsequent spiritual awakening can come to us through some of our most ordinary life transitions. The transformative life events that can spark nonreligious revelation and lead to a spiritual awakening are, in some sense, everyday events, available to anyone with a mind that is open in the right way.
We will build the theoretical and empirical framework needed to investigate the conditions, nature, and value of yearning for non-religious revelation and its accompanying spiritual transformation. In addition to the production of academic articles, a book, and a collaborative workshop, there will be significant public engagement.
