IDEAS ON THE FRONTLINE
Breakthrough cognitive research and a recent survey reveal a new bridge between the secular and the sacred: the emotion of awe. Nearly everyone experiences it.
Human beings have a propensity for awe and wonder, both scientific researchers and theologians agree. They disagree on why we feel the rich emotion, but not its potential importance. This innate capacity, if cultivated, may be an antidote for our troubling times, they say, as research shows experiencing awe improves mental health and reverses depression and loneliness.
Neurobiologically, awe deactivates and quiets the default-mode network, which refers to the ruminating, planning, worrying aspect of the brain, sometimes called the “inner critic” or “small self.” Once quieted, new perception emerges. Research has found something similar occurs in meditation, psychedelic trips, and deep flow states.
The “science of awe” is barely two decades old, launched in 2003 with a study by psychologists Dacher Keltner and Jonathan Haidt at the University of California, Berkley, and the University of Virginia, respectively. Since then, at least 168 other peer-reviewed studies have been published by researchers around the world, and specialized labs are expanding at Berkley, Stanford, UC Irvine, and international universities.
“Awe allows us to get outside of ourselves, and integrates us into larger patterns — of community, of nature, of ideas and cultural forms — that enable our very survival,” Keltner writes in his 2023 book, “Awe: The New Science of Everyday Wonder and How it Can Transform Your Life.” He says awe is a neurobiological state that underlies everything from the enjoyment of music to psychedelic tripping. It is a felt connection to something greater than self; momentary yet meaningful. It can help individuals and society thrive.
Keltner traces awe from pre-history when early hominids perhaps huddled together, goosebumps or chills running along their skin, vocalizing “whoa,” as they collectively reacted to a massive waterfall, dramatic weather, or predators. Cultural evolution has produced almost infinite expressions of the experience — myths, painting, singing, chanting, drama and religious liturgy — over thousands of years. Awe is universal.
A survey conducted this past year by the Pew Research Center found 93 percent of respondents feel a sense of awe at the beauty of nature at least yearly, and 61 percent feel it at least weekly. The survey, whose goal was to find how often people have spiritual experiences and what kind, revealed that awe and gratitude were the most frequent experiences.
In his book, Keltner says awesome experiences can feel sacred to non-believers who don’t “flavor” those experiences with cultural overlays of “supernatural belief systems.” Religious people, of course, and many post-materialism researchers, are skeptical of Keltner’s reductionist explanation of awe’s origins. For them, a deeper reality exists that prompts emotions such as awe and wonder.
For instance, researcher Lisa Miller, founder of Columbia University’s Spirituality Mind Body Institute, says in her book, “The Awakened Brain,” that our brains act as “docking stations” for sacred consciousness, but they do not create experiences such as awe. Miller is a founding member of The Academy for the Advancement of Postmaterialist Sciences.
Written by Tom Zolper
Edited by Liza Horan
