Spiritual Practice,Health Promotion,and the Elusive Soul: Perspectives from Public Health

Spirituality and religion are topics of increasing interest in U.S. society and popular culture as well for many health professions, including medicine, psychology, and public health. This article comments on Mark Graves’ (2008) synthesis of science and spirituality/religion, Mind, Brain, and the Elusive Soul from the perspective of a public health professional. I briefly review the sources, extent, and conceptual approaches of emerging scientific and health interest in spirituality/religion. Spiritual practices are identified as phenomena of central interest. Major concepts of Graves’ synthesis are reviewed, and the soul’s relevance to spiritual growth, popular culture, and scientific application is discussed. Several questions are posed as a stimulus to further extension and refinement of Graves’ synthesis.     

Combining Indian and Western Spiritual Psychology: Applications to Health and Social Renewal

We introduce the topic of Indian/US collaboration in studying religion and spirituality (R/S), providing both historical and philosophical context. A fully in-depth and comprehensive study of R/S will require taking into account three potential types and sources of knowledge: (1) theoretically and intellectually oriented knowledge as exemplified by William James; (2) empirically oriented knowledge as exemplified by Gordon Allport; and (3) experience- and realization-derived knowledge based on reports from eminent spiritual figures. We sketch the distinct but mutually informative challenges of clinical and epistemic integration. We suggest several topics for future collaboration, arguing that the most comprehensive study of R/S will require combining the western attention to empirical knowledge with the Indian psychology movement’s attention to realization-derived knowledge. Suggested topics include processes of learning from spiritual exemplars and teachers; health effects from engagement in Hindu or other Indian religious practice; psychological and health effects of specific spiritual practices; the importance and influence of the focus used in meditation; the effects of japam, Ramnam, or similar repeated short prayers; how diverse spiritual practices affect mindfulness; and the nature and means of fostering skills for living in a religiously plural society.     

Indian Spirituality: How Relevant is Pargament’s Framework?

The psychology of religion and spirituality is a topic of increasing interest in India as well as in the West. An internationally influential framework for defining religion and spirituality has been developed by US psychologist Kenneth Pargament, who conceptualizes spirituality and religion as search processes related to sacred realities. Pargament’s framework has been found to resonate across multiple cultures and has guided and informed empirical research in Jewish, Christian, and Muslim populations. The present paper argues that Pargament’s framework can also coherently resonate with Hinduism and other indigenous Indian religious beliefs and practices. We conclude that future studies of religion and spirituality in Indian contexts may benefit by framing their investigations with reference to Pargament’s approach. Such framing need not be uncritical and would help bring Indian psychology of spirituality/religion in closer contact with psychology of spirituality/religion in other parts of the world, benefiting both India and the worldwide psychology of religion and spirituality.     

Eknath Easwaran’s Mantram and Passage Meditation as Applied Indian Psychology: Psycho-Spiritual and Health Effects

We review the life and legacy of Eknath Easwaran (1910–1999) from the perspective of modern and Indian Psychology. A Kerala-born professor of English literature, Easwaran in 1959 travelled to the USA where he taught a system of eight spiritual practices known as passage meditation (PM). Its characteristic features include its meditative focus on memorized inspirational passages and using mantram repetition as a primarily “portable” practice throughout the day. The PM method is distinctive in emphasizing the principle, otherwise neglected in the modern psychology of meditation, that “we become what we meditate on”—a principle that possesses a basis in traditional Indian sources that include the Vedas, Puranas, Adi ?a?kara, and Ramakrishna Paramahamsa. Two major programs of empirical research have evaluated Easwaran’s practices, each publishing multiple randomized controlled trials. We summarize findings from (i) studies of the full PM program, and (ii) studies of the Mantram Repetition Program (MRP), based on three of the eight PM points. Randomized evidence links each program to reduced stress, improved mental health, improved mindfulness, and increases in various spiritual measures. We describe ways that PM/MRP empirical research has reflected Indian Psychology perspectives, and suggest that Easwaran’s legacy enriches Indian Psychology with added value in at least three ways: emphasizing the importance of the choice of meditative focus, offering universally framed support for devotional (bhakti) orientations to spirituality, and supplying tools for improving how spiritual diversity is addressed in modern institutions such as health care, schools, and other organizations.     

The Religion of the Educated Classes Revisited: New Religions,the Nonreligious,and Educational Levels

A number of different studies carried out in the late 20th century indicated that new religious movements (NRMs) tended to recruit individuals who were highly educated. In the present study, we confirm this pattern utilizing data from the national censuses of Australia, New Zealand, Canada, England, and Wales. Additionally, we found that educational patterns for NRMs in the censuses tended to fall into at least two subgroups, one of which had educational levels comparable to mainline denominations and the other of which had significantly higher educational achievements. Furthermore, census respondents who expressed some variety of nonbelief were comparable to this latter group in terms of educational accomplishments. We discuss this latter finding in terms of Ernst Troeltsch and Colin Campbell's analysis of secularization.     

Adolescent Violence: The Protective Effects of Youth Assets

The authors explored adolescent physical fighting and weapon carrying, using in‐home interviews with 1,098 middle/high school students and their parents. Logistic regression analyses examined the relationship between youth assets and the risk behaviors while controlling for demographic information. Both demographic factors and assets were associated with no physical fighting, and 6 of 9 assets were linked to not carrying a weapon. These findings indicate that certain assets may protect youth from physical fighting and carrying a weapon.     

Learning from Spiritual Models and Meditation: A Randomized Evaluation of a College Course

Effects of two meditation and mindfulness-based spiritual interventions were examined in college undergraduates (N=44). Compared to a control group, both interventions decreased negative religious coping (d=−0.80, p<.01) and images of God as mainly controlling (d=−.73, p<.01). One intervention provided more training in tools for learning from community and tradition-based spiritual exemplars. It produced gains in famous or traditional spiritual exemplars’ perceived influence (d=+.81, p<.05) and availability (d=+.66, p<.10), in self-efficacy for learning from spiritual exemplars (d=+.92, p<.05), and in nonmaterialistic aspirations (d=+0.65, p<.05).     

Integrating Spiritual Modeling Into Education: A College Course for Stress Management and Spiritual Growth

The article explores the relationship between mysticism and creativity from a psychoanalytic perspective. First, it first surveys prominent psychoanalytic perspectives on mysticism and creativity, situating British psychoanalyst Marion Milner among them. Milner suggests that the same psychological processes are involved in both creative expression and mystical experiences. A state of paradox, affirming both I and not-I, self and no-self, is at the core of mysticism. Similarly, for Milner the paradox of creativity is to break down the barrier of space between self and other while maintaining it. Second, the idea that mystics and artists share a common basic experience is investigated. In both mystical and creative states one finds elements of joy, union, ecstasy, absorption, loss of self-consciousness, and loss of sense of time. Milner's discussion in turn revolves around the I-not-I distinction. She posits that mysticism is one dimension of the creative process-in contrast to the pure oceanic feeling of the mystic, the creative process is constituted by the oceanic state in cyclic oscillation with the surface mind, actively used with the intent to produce something. Third, the relevance of mysticism and creativity for mental health is explored. For Milner, both creativity and mystical experiences are psychologically beneficial in that they undo the overfixed separation self and other caused by the tyranny of the conscious mind. Yet neither mysticism nor creative expression alone, in her view, can heal an underlying lack of sense of self.