THE SPIRITUAL CURIOSITY PROJECT: One Page Nav

[cs_content][cs_section id=”Home” bg_image=”http://spiritualcuriosityandthemind.stanford.edu/wp-content/uploads/2017/08/bg7.png” bg_color=”hsl(0, 0%, 0%)” parallax=”true” separator_top_type=”none” separator_top_height=”50px” separator_top_angle_point=”50″ separator_bottom_type=”none” separator_bottom_height=”50px” separator_bottom_angle_point=”50″ class=”cs-ta-center” style=”margin: 0px;padding: 0px 0px 80px;”][cs_row inner_container=”true” marginless_columns=”false” style=”margin: 0px auto;padding: 10% 0px 0px;”][cs_column fade=”false” fade_animation=”in” fade_animation_offset=”45px” fade_duration=”750″ type=”1/1″ style=”padding: 0px;”][cs_text class=”site-name”]Spiritual Curiosity and the Mind[/cs_text][cs_text class=”project-name”]THE MIND AND SPIRIT PROJECT[/cs_text][/cs_column][/cs_row][cs_row inner_container=”true” marginless_columns=”false” style=”margin: 0px auto;padding: 0px;”][cs_column fade=”false” fade_animation=”in-from-top” fade_animation_offset=”45px” fade_duration=”750″ type=”1/1″ style=”padding: 0px 0px 0;”][x_blockquote cite=”T.M. Luhrmann” type=”center” class=”quote”]”We see through a glass darkly.
There is much we do not know, even now, about spiritual experience.”[/x_blockquote][/cs_column][/cs_row][/cs_section][cs_section id=”About-the-project” bg_image=”http://spiritualcuriosityandthemind.stanford.edu/wp-content/uploads/2017/08/bg3a.png” bg_color=”#ffffff” parallax=”true” separator_top_type=”none” separator_top_height=”50px” separator_top_angle_point=”50″ separator_bottom_type=”none” separator_bottom_height=”50px” separator_bottom_angle_point=”50″ class=”cs-ta-center” style=”margin: 0px;padding: 0px;”][cs_row inner_container=”true” marginless_columns=”false” class=”cs-ta-center” style=”margin: 0px auto;padding: 70px 0px 50px;max-width: 1000px;”][cs_column fade=”false” fade_animation=”in” fade_animation_offset=”45px” fade_duration=”750″ type=”1/1″ class=”cs-ta-left” style=”padding: 0px;”][x_custom_headline level=”h1″ looks_like=”h1″ accent=”true” class=”cs-ta-center about” style=”color: hsl(303, 24%, 33%);”]ABOUT THE PROJECT[/x_custom_headline][/cs_column][/cs_row][cs_row inner_container=”true” marginless_columns=”true” class=”cs-ta-left tabs” style=”margin: 0px auto 150px;padding: 0px;max-width:1000px;”][cs_column bg_color=”hsla(0, 0%, 0%, 0)” fade=”false” fade_animation=”in-from-bottom” fade_animation_offset=”45px” fade_duration=”750″ type=”1/1″ class=”cs-ta-left” style=”padding: 0px;”][x_tab_nav type=”five-up” float=”top” class=”about-tabs”][x_tab_nav_item title=”Mission” active=”false” class=”tab1″][x_tab_nav_item title=”Methodology” active=”false” class=”tab2″][x_tab_nav_item title=”Current Status” active=”false” class=”tab3″][x_tab_nav_item title=”Goal” active=”false” class=”tab4″][x_tab_nav_item title=”Funding” active=”false” class=”tab5″][/x_tab_nav][x_tabs class=”about-tabs”][x_tab active=”false” class=”tab1″]The “Spiritual Curiosity and the experience of God” project sets out to understand how cultural variation in ideas about the mind shapes the way people seek and experience the supernatural through a large comparative project. A belief in supernatural agents may build upon psychological biases in human cognition, but we think that faith is culturally constituted, and that this happens through effortful attention, often to the mind and to mental events. Prayer, for example, requires the person praying to examine their thoughts, and often, to understand thoughts and other mental events in particular ways. In this project, we hypothesize that different cultural understandings of the mind—specifically, how separate the mind is from the body and whether it “leaks” out and affects the material world; how socially important inner experience is held to be and whether inner experience is thought to be what makes someone authentically themselves; and how imagination is understood—shape the way people pay attention to and interpret events they deem supernatural.[/x_tab][x_tab active=”false” class=”tab2″]To pursue the research, we have built an interdisciplinary team. We are mostly anthropologists and psychologists, but we include a philosopher, an historian and a few neuroscientists. Working with younger scholars and with international scholars, we are taking a mixed-methods, multi-phase approach, combining participant observation, semi-structured interviews, quantitative surveys, and experimental research. We are currently conducting research in five different countries–China, Ghana, Thailand, the US, and Vanuatu/Oceania–and with four populations per country: urban charismatic Christian, rural charismatic Christian, and the urban and rural groups that best represent that country’s “indigenous” religion. These four populations give us both an apples-to-apples comparison and a chance to explore the impact of charismatic Christianity on the way people think about thinking and on their spiritual experience. [/x_tab][x_tab active=”false” class=”tab3″]This fall, we are finishing data collection and beginning to analyze the work. We are working with our indepth, ethnographically sensitive interviews and structured tasks that help us explore the patterns we see in the open-ended interviews. We have many standardized survey questions about body, mind and spirit. We have conducted an “epidemiology” of spiritual experience—something that has never been done. We have been working with children to understand how children think about our different mental dimensions (really, the way children judge whether thinking affects the world directly, and how they draw inferences about other minds). By the end of this year, we hope to have coded and analyzed much of this vast trove of data.[/x_tab][x_tab active=”false” class=”tab4″]Our intention is to collect as many rich experiences and cultural understandings of the mind, mental process and supernatural experience as we can to learn more about the way specific “cultural invitations” shape the way people experience God and spirit.[/x_tab][x_tab active=”false” class=”tab5″]The Mind and Spirit Project (formerly Spiritual Curiosity and the Experience of God project) is funded by the John Templeton Foundation.[/x_tab][/x_tabs][cs_text class=”cs-ta-left” style=”color:#333;font-weight:600;font-size:16px;”][/cs_text][/cs_column][/cs_row][/cs_section][cs_section id=”People” bg_color=”hsl(220, 4%, 31%)” parallax=”true” separator_top_type=”none” separator_top_height=”50px” separator_top_angle_point=”50″ separator_bottom_type=”none” separator_bottom_height=”50px” separator_bottom_angle_point=”50″ style=”margin: 0px;padding: 0px 0px 150px;”][cs_row inner_container=”true” marginless_columns=”false” style=”margin: 0px auto;padding: 70px 0px 20px;”][cs_column fade=”false” fade_animation=”in” fade_animation_offset=”45px” fade_duration=”750″ type=”1/1″ style=”padding: 0px;”][x_custom_headline level=”h1″ looks_like=”h1″ accent=”true” class=”cs-ta-center” style=”color: hsl(0, 11%, 56%);”]PEOPLE[/x_custom_headline][/cs_column][/cs_row][cs_row inner_container=”true” marginless_columns=”false” style=”margin: 0px auto;padding: 0px;”][cs_column fade=”false” fade_animation=”in” fade_animation_offset=”45px” fade_duration=”750″ type=”1/3″ style=”padding: 0px;”][x_custom_headline level=”h3″ looks_like=”h3″ accent=”false” class=”cs-ta-center headline-padding” style=”color: hsl(90, 2%, 84%);font-weight:300;”]PRINCIPAL INVESTIGATOR[/x_custom_headline][x_image type=”none” src=”http://spiritualcuriosityandthemind.stanford.edu/wp-content/uploads/2018/07/Tanya-Luhrmann1.jpg” alt=”” link=”true” href=”principal-investigators” 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84%);font-weight:300;”]CORE FIELDWORKERS[/x_custom_headline][x_image type=”none” src=”http://spiritualcuriosityandthemind.stanford.edu/wp-content/uploads/2017/09/researchers.jpg” alt=”” link=”true” href=”Researchers” title=”Core Fieldworkers” target=”blank” info=”none” info_place=”top” info_trigger=”hover” info_content=”” id=”#CoreFieldworkers”][/cs_column][/cs_row][/cs_section][cs_section id=”Locations” bg_color=”hsl(0, 0%, 100%)” parallax=”true” separator_top_type=”none” separator_top_height=”50px” separator_top_angle_point=”50″ separator_bottom_type=”none” separator_bottom_height=”50px” separator_bottom_angle_point=”50″ style=”margin: 0px;padding: 0px 0px 150px;”][cs_row inner_container=”true” marginless_columns=”false” style=”margin: 0px auto;padding: 70px 0px;”][cs_column fade=”false” fade_animation=”in” fade_animation_offset=”45px” fade_duration=”750″ type=”1/1″ style=”padding: 0px;”][x_custom_headline level=”h1″ looks_like=”h1″ accent=”true” class=”cs-ta-center” style=”color: 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fade_duration=”750″ type=”2/3″ style=”padding: 0px;”][x_callout title=”When God Talks Back” message=”A New York Times Notable Book
A Kirkus Reviews Best Book of 2012

A bold approach to understanding the American evangelical experience from an anthropological and psychological perspective by one of the country's most prominent anthropologists.

Through a series of intimate, illuminating interviews with various members of the Vineyard, an evangelical church with hundreds of congregations across the country, T.M. Luhrmann leaps into the heart of evangelical faith. Combined with scientific research that studies the effect that intensely practiced prayer can have on the mind, When God Talks Back examines how normal, sensible people–from college students to accountants to housewives, all functioning perfectly well within our society–can attest to having the signs and wonders of the supernatural become as quotidian and as ordinary as laundry. Astute, sensitive, and extraordinarily measured in its approach to the interface between science and religion, Luhrmann's book is sure to generate as much conversation as it will praise.” type=”left” button_text=”T.M. Luhrmann” circle=”false” button_icon=”wikipedia-w” href=”http://luhrmann.net/” href_title=”About Dr. Luhramann” target=”blank” style=”font-size:18px;line-height:24px;color:#000;background:none;border:none;padding:0;”][/cs_column][/cs_row][cs_row inner_container=”true” marginless_columns=”false” style=”margin: 0px auto 10px;padding: 0px;”][cs_column fade=”false” fade_animation=”in” fade_animation_offset=”45px” fade_duration=”750″ type=”1/1″ style=”padding: 0px;”][x_custom_headline level=”h3″ looks_like=”h3″ accent=”false” class=”cs-ta-center” style=”color: hsl(0, 6%, 9%);margin-bottom:25px;font-weight:800;”]VIDEO[/x_custom_headline][x_video_embed no_container=”false” type=”16:9″ class=”WGTB-video”][/x_video_embed][/cs_column][/cs_row][cs_row inner_container=”true” marginless_columns=”false” style=”margin: 0px auto 10px;padding: 0px;”][cs_column fade=”false” fade_animation=”in” fade_animation_offset=”45px” fade_duration=”750″ type=”1/1″ class=”cs-ta-center” style=”padding: 0px;”][x_custom_headline level=”h3″ looks_like=”h3″ accent=”false” class=”cs-ta-center” style=”color: hsl(0, 6%, 9%);margin-bottom:25px;font-weight:800;”]AUDIO[/x_custom_headline][x_image type=”none” src=”http://spiritualcuriosityandthemind.stanford.edu/wp-content/uploads/2017/05/freshair.png” alt=”” link=”false” href=”#” title=”” target=”” info=”none” info_place=”top” info_trigger=”hover” info_content=”” class=”freshair” style=”width:150px;”][x_audio_embed class=”WGTB-audio”][/x_audio_embed][/cs_column][/cs_row][/cs_section][cs_section id=”Share-your-experience” bg_color=”hsla(0, 8%, 84%, 0.25)” parallax=”false” separator_top_type=”none” separator_top_height=”50px” separator_top_angle_point=”50″ separator_bottom_type=”none” separator_bottom_height=”50px” separator_bottom_angle_point=”50″ class=”cs-ta-center” style=”margin: 0px;padding: 65px 0px 0px;”][cs_row inner_container=”true” marginless_columns=”false” style=”margin: 0 auto 0px;padding: 30px 0px 0px;”][cs_column fade=”true” fade_animation=”in-from-bottom” fade_animation_offset=”45px” fade_duration=”750″ type=”1/1″ style=”padding: 0px;”][x_icon type=”wechat” icon_color=”” bg_color=”” icon_size=”” bg_size=”” bg_border_radius=”” style=”font-size: 36px;line-height: 1;”][x_gap size=”20px”][x_custom_headline level=”h2″ looks_like=”h2″ accent=”true” class=”resp-h” style=”color: hsl(0, 2%, 53%);margin: 0.35em 0;”]SPIRITUAL EXPERIENCE FORUM[/x_custom_headline][x_image type=”circle” src=”http://spiritualcuriosityandthemind.stanford.edu/wp-content/uploads/2017/08/person-smartphone-office-table.jpeg” alt=”” link=”false” href=”#” title=”” target=”” info=”none” info_place=”top” info_trigger=”hover” info_content=””][/cs_column][/cs_row][cs_row inner_container=”false” marginless_columns=”false” bg_color=”hsl(38, 100%, 50%)” class=”cs-ta-center” style=”margin: 0px auto;padding: 0px;”][cs_column fade=”false” fade_animation=”in” fade_animation_offset=”45px” fade_duration=”750″ type=”1/1″ style=”padding: 0px;”][cs_text class=”cs-ta-center”]

Have you had a spiritual experience that you would be interested in sharing?

[/cs_text][/cs_column][/cs_row][cs_row inner_container=”true” marginless_columns=”false” bg_color=”hsla(38, 100%, 50%, 0)” class=”cs-ta-center” style=”margin: 0px auto;padding: 40px 0px 0px;max-width:800px;”][cs_column fade=”false” fade_animation=”in” fade_animation_offset=”45px” fade_duration=”750″ type=”1/1″ class=”cs-ta-center” style=”padding: 0px;max-width:800px;”][cs_text class=”cs-ta-left”]

We are seeking to understand the ways in which people experience divinity and the supernatural around the world.

If you have been conscious of, and perhaps influenced by, some power, whether you would call it the effect of God or not, we would be grateful if you could:

Write out a simple and brief account of these feelings and their effects—a deep sense of awe or wonder, a voice or vision, a profound sense of presence, or whatever way in which divinity or the supernatural became apparent to you.

You should include particulars of:

age,
gender,
nationality,
religious upbringing and
current practice

[/cs_text][/cs_column][/cs_row][cs_row inner_container=”false” marginless_columns=”true” class=”cs-ta-center” style=”margin: 0px auto;padding: 0px;”][cs_column bg_color=”hsla(38, 100%, 50%, 0.1)” fade=”false” fade_animation=”in-from-left” fade_animation_offset=”45px” fade_duration=”1500″ type=”1/2″ class=”cs-ta-right” style=”padding: 40px 0 0;”][cs_text class=”cs-ta-left share-experience”]

EITHER SHARE HERE, SEND THEM TO nikki.ross@stanford.edu, OR MAIL THEM:

Director, Spiritual Curiosity and the Experience of God,
Department of Anthropology, Building 50,
Stanford University, Stanford CA 94305.

PI: Tanya Luhrmann, PhD, Anthropology

This is a research study. We do not guarantee or promise that you will receive any benefits from this study. Your participation is voluntary. If you have any questions, concerns or complaints about this research, its procedures, risks and benefits, contact the Protocol Director Tanya Luhrmann at US 650 723 3421 or write to the Stanford IRB, Stanford University, 3000 El Camino Real, Five Palo Alto Square, 4th Floor, Palo Alto, CA 94306.

Please print a copy of this page for your records. To post publicly, use the Forum section below. To send privately, use the Contact Form on the right.

[/cs_text][x_gap size=”20px” class=”cs-hide-md cs-hide-sm cs-hide-xs”][cs_text title=”Copy of undefined” class=”cs-ta-left share-experience”][bbp-forum-index]
[/cs_text][/cs_column][cs_column bg_color=”hsla(0, 100%, 22%, 0.1)” fade=”false” fade_animation=”in-from-right” fade_animation_offset=”45px” fade_duration=”1500″ type=”1/2″ style=”padding: 40px 0 0;”][cs_text class=”cs-ta-left share-form” style=”color:#000;font-size:18px;line-height:24px;margin-bottom:0;font-weight:600;text-transform:uppercase;”]To send your spiritual experiences privately, please fill out this form. The information will be sent to a private email address.[/cs_text][cs_text class=”cs-ta-left share-form”][wpforms id=”549″ title=”false” description=”false”][/cs_text][/cs_column][/cs_row][/cs_section][cs_responsive_text selector=”.resp-h” compression=”1.0″ min_size=”42px” max_size=”54px”][cs_responsive_text selector=”.resp-p” compression=”2.5″ min_size=”16px” max_size=”21px”][/cs_content]