Title Predictors and outcomes of experiences deemed religious : Alongitudinal investigation

Experiences deemed religious” (EDRs) are events that a person regards as religious and/or supernatural. This study considered four such experiences -miraculous healing, glossolalia, unusual joy and peace during meditation or prayer, as well as prayer answered. We proposed a process model, and conducted a longitudinal study to address three main research questions: (1) Who are more likely to have EDRs? (2) What effects would the experiences have on the person’s subsequent spiritual and psychological conditions? (3) Are all EDRs alike? Findings suggest that EDRs can be predicted through certain common individual characteristics, such as vertical faith maturity (i.e., intimacy with the divine). However, there are also individual predictors that are EDR-specific. Regarding outcomes, the experience of unusual joy and peace during prayer and meditation heightens vertical faith maturity, motivates more religious practices, predicts better sleep quality at a later time, and perhaps improves quality of life. However, tongue-speaking results in no change in any measured outcome variables. Neither does having prayers answered. Surprisingly, being healed from serious physical illness can have negative consequences. Results demonstrate that the EDRs should not be treated as the same when it comes to their antecedents and consequences. 3 EXPERIENCES DEEMED RELIGIOUS Predictors and Outcomes of Experiences Deemed Religious: A Longitudinal Investigation Some religious believers report experiences of the divine presence or a miraculous event. Often highly emotionally charged, they are what the believers themselves consider extraordinary, miraculous, and overwhelming. However, despite Spilka, Brown, and Cassidy’s (1992) call for more work on the correlates of such experiences and the post-experience lifestyles, growth in research in this area has been slow. In this study, we used a relatively large sample to elucidate the characteristics of people who report such experiences, and explored the possible faith-related and psychological effects that these experiences may have on the persons. Besides its theoretical import, this line of enquiry would have practical implications for religious workers as well as clinicians who work with religious clients reporting such experiences. Experiences Deemed Religious In this investigation we focus on what Taves (2009) understood as experiences deemed religious (EDRs). They are conceptually distinguishable from “religious experiences” in the process whereby people ascribe religious, mystical, or spiritual characteristics to certain events. This disaggregation from religious experiences enables more attention to be given to “the interaction between psychological, social, and cultural-linguistics processes in relation to carefully specified types of experiences sometimes considered religious and to build methodological bridges across divide between the humanities and the sciences” (p.8). Taves’s conceptualization is consistent with the finding that mystical experiences are more often reported by people who are suggestible (e.g., Granqvist et al., 2005). Proudfoot (1985) also asserted that the difference between religious and mundane experiences lies in the way that 4 EXPERIENCES DEEMED RELIGIOUS human agents ascribe the origin of the experience. Primarily, a religious experience is defined on the basis of the type of explanation offered for the experience rather than the content of the experience itself. Recognizing or perceiving that an experience is religious is the first step of meaning-making. Hence, if an experience is regarded by a person as religious, it falls in the domain of our inquiry. Whether or not the experience is truly supernatural is a debatable topic better left for others to decipher. Although some of these experiences may be rare and out of the ordinary, others are slightly more common, insofar as reported by the believers. For example, some Christians claim that their petitionary prayers have been answered. Some have seen or heard seriously ill people inexplicably healed. A substantial proportion of people in charismatic and Pentecostal congregations have spoken in tongues or seen somebody did so. Tongue-speaking (and other manifestations of “spirit baptism”) may even be viewed as normative in certain congregations such as the Church of God. In the present research, we focused on four EDRs, namely physical healing from serious illness, speaking in tongues, unusual joy and peace during prayers and meditation, and prayer answered. Unlike some other experiences such as clairvoyance, extrasensory perception, contact with the dead, near-death experience, divine guidance through imageries, visions, or dreams, these four are not rare in some religious communities. In fact, with the spread of neoPentecostalism, they have become more prevalent across churches of different denominations and thus deserve more theoretical and empirical attention. The first two tend to occur more often, more sought after, and are described as important and essential religious experiences in Pentecostal/charismatic churches than in mainline and evangelical churches. For example, about 70% of Assemblies of God congregants reported having been miraculously healed from a 5 EXPERIENCES DEEMED RELIGIOUS physical illness (Poloma & Green, 2010, p. 127), although it is not clear whether the illnesses were minor ailments or life-threatening diseases. In a national survey, 43% of respondents said that they had experienced divine healing of a physical illness (Lee, Poloma, & Post, 2013). About 48% of a sample of Anglicans and Pentecostals reported that they had an occasion when they felt moved to pray or speak in tongues (Francis & Jones, 1997). Even in an evangelical congregation, about a third of members reported speaking in tongues occasionally (Luhrmann, 2012). That is, these two EDRs are not restricted to Pentecostal/charismatic churches. The other two EDRs (unusual joy and peace during prayers and meditation, and prayer answered) are even more widespread in churches, and are reported by believers across many denominations. These EDRs are just as frequently mentioned, reported, and preached about in Pentecostal/charismatic churches as in other churches. According to Poloma and Gallup (1991), about 15% of students believed that they regularly received answers to their prayer, although there were also 27% who never did. All these experiences are special, not because they are rare, but because they carry special religious meaning, which the experiencers have presumably taken part in making. One question of theoretical interest is whether these four EDRs can be conveniently grouped under the same category and treated as one single psychological construct, or whether they are distinct experiences with different predictors and outcomes. There are some obvious differences among them. Tongue-speaking usually occurs in public, while the other three can be in private. Tongue-speaking and recovery from a serious illness or injury can be objectively assessed, while a participant’s feeling joy and peace is harder to observe objectively. Besides being partially an outcome of the person’s ascribing some religious meaning, do these EDRs 6 EXPERIENCES DEEMED RELIGIOUS share the same antecedents? The answer to this question will help us in deciding whether we need to make conceptual distinctions among the EDRs. Predictors of EDRs That certain experiences are seen as religious by mostly people who are religious does not mean that everyone who has a religious affiliation would report EDRs. It is in fact worthwhile to understand if some people are more likely than others to regard certain experiences as revealing of the supernatural. Some findings suggested that religious experiences vary across demographic variables such as gender, age, and social class. Hay (1982) found that women reported more instances of religious experiences (41%) than did men (31%). Maselko and Kubzansky (2006) showed from a national survey similar gender difference (30% vs. 23%) in daily spiritual experience. Another national sample survey in Britain revealed that the frequency of religious experiences increased from 29 percent for adolescents to 47 percent for those aged 60 and over (Hay, 1990). In a congregational survey of Pentecostals, Poloma and Green (2010, Table C.1) found age positively related to report of tongue-speaking and physical healing. They also found that income was negatively related to these experiences, and to the experience of divine presence. However, Hay and Morisy (1978) found people in upper-middle class reporting more religious experiences (47%) compared with unskilled workers (32%). Fox (1992) indicated that paranormal experiences were unaffected by income. On the balance of the literature, we proposed the following hypotheses for further exploration: H1a: EDRs would be more likely among the female than the male. H1b: EDRs would be more likely among those who are older than the younger. 7 EXPERIENCES DEEMED RELIGIOUS H1c: EDRs would be more likely among those with higher income than those with lower income. A few studies attempted to search for personality antecedents of EDRs. With a sample of 84 attendees of religious/spiritual group meetings, Granqvist, Hagekull, and Ivarsson (2012) showed that disorganized attachment (i.e., failure to mentally resolve childhood traumas) is a precursor to mystical experiences. In another study, Thaibourne and Delin (1999) found some evidence that mystical experience may be related to psychopathology. On the other hand, Argyle and Hills (2000) did not observe any difference on psychoticism and neuroticism between those who had mystical experiences and those who did not. In a small sample of glossolalics, only 25% had had a crisis (Stanley, Bartlett, & Moyle, 1978). Others even found among past participants of a charismatic event that “those experiencing positive emotions were also more likely t