The Elements of Spiritual Experience

Despite the lack of common religious elements across cultures, there are common elements around intense spiritual experience. These are usually experienced through, and associated with, specific religions. They are often at the root of mystical traditions within religions.

Intense spiritual experience is a state of consciousness that moves beyond language based thought. The sense of self disappears and the feeling of being separate melts away. The self disappears into a sense of a greater whole. A feeling of everything being as it should be, is often reported. ‘Everything just is.’

Going into an intense spiritual experience, a person passes through a phase of language based thought and returns to language based thought when coming out of an intense spiritual experience. It is at these points that the cultural interpretation defines the meaning of the experience. This is when the spiritual experience becomes a Christian or Muslim or a Hindu experience.