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On the Sharing of Spiritual Experience
February 4, 2007 by addofio

This is a follow-up to this previous post.

OK, this is going to be highly spectulative and/or naive, but here goes anyway.

Suppose we accept that inter-subjective exploration of phenomena helps us toward coming closer and closer to truth. It certainly seems to work relative to the physical world, to the extent that we can conceive of objective truth about the physical world, at least. But can it help us with regard to approaching spiritual truth?

I think/suspect/hope that the answer is a qualified “yes”.

First, we’d have to suppose that there’s some kind of spiritual reality about which we can find some truth. So let’s suppose that, but for now, at least, let’s not suppose anything more than the existence of this kind of reality–nothing about it’s specifics. Posit the Tao, if you like, at least for the sake of this discussion.

Now let’s suppose that human beings somehow experience that spiritual reality, at least at times and in part. Certainly, we know that individual human beings have claimed and do claim exactly that. The question becomes, what do we gain/learn by considering the analogy to intersubjective truths about the physical world?

Let me first focus on some differences.

The physical world is inherently inter-subjective–that is, is exists outside us. We have evolved as physical beings within it, and we all have basically similar sensory systems. As a result, we therefore have a vast supply of common experience of physical reality to draw upon. The development of language is made possible by these facts. Our early development of language and concepts relies heavily on point-and-touch—-the sharing of common experience of phenomena in our shared physical environment.

However, this is not the case with spiritual experience. There seems to be something inherently subjective about spiritual experience. One cannot share one’s spiritual experience by point-and-touch. When two people discuss a rock, say, they can have some assurance that they both mean the same thing when they say “The rock is black” or “The rock is smooth”, or heavy, or whatever; and they can certainly have confidence that they are at least talking about the same rock. This confidence is based on 1) the rock’s presence in their shared external physical environment, and 2) our fundamentally similar neurosensory systems. With talk about spiritual matters, on the other hand, it is often hard to even tell if we are talking about the same spiritual phenomenon, let alone that we mean the same thing when we use the same words about our own experience with that phenomenon. We have no obvious organs adapted to the perception of spiritual phenomena, and I have no direct, independent access to your spiritual experience, as you have no direct independent access to mine, so that we cannot check our understanding of each other’s spiritual talk against an understanding formed through sensory input, as we can for the physical environment.

But this does not mean we cannot develop some common understandings, or even some shared experience, with regard to spiritual matters. While we cannot directly share our inner spiritual experience, we can go through similar experiences and talk about the results. In fact, this is how we come to share many abstract concepts or concepts about subjective experience in general. We can and do share-and-compare our feelings, and we believe that we can understand how another person feels through empathy. As older adults, we might look at a young couple gazing into each other’s eyes, and smile knowlingly and think “Isn’t that sweet–they’re in love.” As an 8-year-old child, we’re more likely to think “Yuck!” What’s the difference? The adult has “been there”, the child has not. Common, though subjective, experience. We tend to assume commonalities across diffeent people for “being in love”, or “angry”, etc., though we also know there are differences, perhaps profound differences.

I suspect spiritual experience is even more variable than the world of common emotions. But nonetheless, I suspect there are regularities and patterns in our spiritual experience. Buddha claimed this–his whole system was an elaboration of “Try this for yourself. See that it works.” That is, here’s a set of experiences you can put yourself through, and here’s what you’ll learn/achieve from them. And once you’ve engaged in these experiences, you will be able to discuss them with others who have also done so. You will have a basis for developing a shared vocabulary.

To summarize: What I’m suggesting is 1) there is a spiritual reality that we can experience to some degree; 2) when we undergo certain similar kinds of experience in the socio-psychological-physical world we may have a common sprirtual experience and from that we can develop a shared vocabulary and basis for discussion; 3) on the other hand the range of spiritual experience we have as the result of undergoing similar socio-psychological-physical experiences is highly variable. If I’m right, we can engage in a sort of “empiricism of spirituality”, but it will proceed very differently from empiricism about the physical world. It would be very important to keep certain principles (facts?) in mind: spiritual data is not directly sharable; some may not be sharable at all, but unique to a given individual; and therefore our spiritual vocabulary is likely to be rather ambiguous; which in turn implies that achieving clarity of communication regarding spiritual experience will require even more work than communication regarding other phenomena. All of which argues for proceeding with caution. Nonetheless, I think it’s worth pursuing.

If there’s anything to this, then spiritual autobiography may be of particular value, because it represents an attempt to communicate to others one person’s spiritual experience and journey. A list of books in this genre that have meant the most to me:

Travelling Mercies, by Annie Lamott.

The Spiral Staircase by Karen Armstrong

A Woman’s Journey to God by Joan Borysenko

Dakota by Kathleen Norris

One last thought, from someone with a better turn of phrase than mine:

We are even more alike in our ignorance than we differ in our knowledge.

Forrest Church
6/5/05